In this episode, I spoke with Patrick Wu, Founder and CEO of Clink, about what payments need to look like in an agentic commerce world. Patrick previously worked on payments infrastructure at Amazon and AWS Payments, and later led global payments at Temu as the company expanded market by market. His view is that payments today are largely built for humans at checkout, but not yet for agents acting under delegated authority.

The conversation started with a basic but important question: if Stripe, PayPal, Airwallex, Visa and Mastercard already exist, why do we need another payments company? Patrick’s answer is that the problem is not just processing a payment. For agentic commerce to work, the system needs to understand who the agent represents, what permission it has, whether the purchase fits the user’s original intent, and whether that authorization can still be verified later. Clink is positioning itself less as a replacement for payment processors and more as a connector across agents, merchants, payment providers, and card networks.

We also spent a lot of time on why payments remain so fragmented globally. Payment habits are local: cards, wallets, bank transfers, convenience-store payments in Japan, and different payment methods across emerging markets. Patrick argues that no single provider is best in every market, which is why AI builders and global merchants may need orchestration across multiple PSPs, local payment methods, and eventually multiple agent platforms.

The most interesting part of the conversation was around trust and liability. If an agent buys the wrong thing, who is responsible? Patrick’s view is that fully autonomous shopping is possible eventually, but the trust layer is not there yet. In the near term, agentic payments will likely work through delegated mandates: user-defined instructions, spending limits, merchant controls, passkeys, audit trails, and chargeback mechanisms. His differentiated view is that the industry may be too focused on creating brand new crypto or blockchain rails, when the more immediate challenge is making existing fiat rails work safely for agents — and getting the ecosystem to align around clearer standards.

Get in touch with Patrick via LinkedIn.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:13 What Clink does and why payments need to evolve for AI agents

01:18 Why today’s payment stack is not ready for agentic commerce

03:07 Why payments remain fragmented across geographies, regulations and user habits

05:48 Clink’s role as a connector across agents, merchants, processors and networks

07:06 Why AI builders may need more than Stripe, Airwallex or PayPal

09:34 Visa partnership and what it means to be an “agent enabler”

15:23 What happens when agents spend a user’s money

21:02 Trust, liability, chargebacks and why China’s wallet model is different

23:26 What agentic commerce actually means today

43:54 Patrick’s differentiated view on fiat rails, stablecoins and protocol fragmentation

Transcript (AI-generated, for reference only)

Grace Shao (00:00)

Hey Patrick, so good to have you on today on AI Proem. Thanks so much for joining.

Patrick (00:05)

Hey Grace, thank you for having me here.

Grace Shao (00:06)

Yeah. To start with, give us the high level. Who are you and what is Clink in a few sentences?

Patrick (00:13)

Sure. so at simplest level, I’ll introduce Clink first. Clink is building the the payment and the bill infrastructure for AI builders and for the agent that they will serve. So payments today we see at design around human being on a checkout page and but we’re building the layer that let authorized agents complete the same transaction safely while helping merchants accept the global payments through the system they already use.

And for myself, I started my payment career path at Amazon and AWS. I learned how to build a payment infrastructure that has to perform at a very high level of reliability and the security. And at Temu, I led a team to solve the problem with payments and the global market expansion. So we expand country by country, market by market, and solving the payment issue locally.

And Clink bring those lessons to a new problem that when we see agent becoming the new commercial actor, but we see the payment stack is not fully ready for that, so we won’t solve that problem.

Grace Shao (01:18)

So what do you mean by the payment stack is not ready for that?

what do you mean by the world’s not ready for agentic payments? And where do you see the gap from existing offerings? Because obviously, when we talked offline, I did challenge you on this. I said, you know, there’s a lot of major fintech players already and payment solutions, Stripe Airwallex PayPal,

right? But where does Clink come in and how does Clink solve this issue,

Patrick (01:44)

Yeah, I think payments are largely solved for human who is present at checkout. so the industry had made it much easier for developer to accept payments like except from card, from our wallet and from like so many payment that local customers prefer. and also the developer can easily launch a product to launch a subscription, send a payment link, right? Those those are like a real progress already made the word.

So but what is not solved on the payment side we see is agents acting under the delegated authority. Right. Processing the charges only one part of that transaction, but the system also needs to know who the agent represents and the what permission that it has and whether the purchase is within the policy, within the intent, like matches the original mandate that the user has given. And then the how the evidence being being persist, right? And if we come back in six months later.

is that transaction still like able to be verified at the point that the agent made the decision. So I think like global merchants still face another unsolved problems like a single provider isn’t no single provider that best at the every market and solve all that agent issue. And then we know worldwide that the agent can can buy product from anywhere. So we see that’s a big gap that the agent e commerce need to

have a both the authentication layer authorization layer and also a practical way to across with all the providers in the market today.

Grace Shao (03:07)

Yeah, actually on that, you did say, you know, payments are very fragmented, right? Like, and but is that fragmentation mostly based on geo geography, regulatory reasons? Is it about payment habits? Like how do we understand that? Why is it so fragmented and it’s not a one solution fits all?

Patrick (03:24)

Yeah, I think that’s a great question and a great observation, right? And to be honest, I think it’s all about like all about that because payment really reflects a local financial system, right? Like you spend twenty dollars in Singapore that you may use a card, you may use your wallet, your bank transfer. But if you know in Japan that many e-commerce orders actually being paid over konbini payment. Konbini is the Japanese word for convention store. If you would like to place an order online and

getting to a company store and the pay when they check out some some goodies. So it’s just a habits and also the regulation and also how the payments being developed in that particular marketplace. So we see that it’s like all different across the world. That that’s a lesson we learned from from building Tammu payment stack that we actually adopted 70 payment method when in the first year. So every country has their own top three payment method.

And every time you add a new pay method, you got some new customers. So it’s kind of very interesting. And then but then the fragmentation is not simply like I I guess you can solve that by building an API and building more like a convenient experience, but we see that as a reflection of local, right? Like habits and migration, all that just as we said. And the the things that we cannot force the users, right? Use got their own votes for what they want to pay.

And that will always exist because that’s how the world works here.

Grace Shao (04:48)

And so thus like where do you fit in then? Like do you have a certain geo gro geography you’re targeting or a certain kind of I guess use case that you’re targeting?

Patrick (04:58)

you mean the agent e commerce or like in general? I think Clink today we try to solve two problems. Yeah. Yeah, we’re trying to solve two problems. Yeah. So one one problem is for today, like the global monetization for the digital servers and AI builders, right? They they’re selling their product, their great application to worldwide, and then the users from worldwide that like to pay them with the local payment.

Grace Shao (05:02)

Just in general because Mm. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, go on.

Patrick (05:23)

So that’s the monetization issue we we try to solve. And also also we’re trying to solve a forward looking issue that when we see the trend that the the actor, the consumer is moving from human to agents, and how agents can leverage the user’s assets, users’ local pay methods, right, and to make that payment, make that purchase, and to make all the information flow and the funds flow fat like try to flow fluently as it is today.

Grace Shao (05:48)

I see, I see. Let’s double click on the business. Help me understand your business a bit more. So one thing that really stood out to me from our earlier conversations that Clink acts more like a connector. how do you describe your role in the whole like payment stat?

Patrick (06:01)

sure, yeah. So I would describe Clink as a connector, as you said, right? And a controller or an aux trader. So we do not want to replace the bank, the car network, a processor, all the commerce platforms, the merchants or other agents, right? So we translate the agent’s intent into a transaction, or it could be the human’s intent and delegate to the agent, right, into a transaction. And the merchant existing system can accept.

apply the rules that the user has set earlier and route the payment as the user preferred payment and also preserve the record for the future validation or whatever verification that comes from. So that will let merchant connect once rather than building a customer payment pass that for every agent, for every processor. So that’s the important part that we won’t be that connector anywhere alive.

And it carries contacts, permissions, all that and solving the issue to connect all different kind of agents, different kinda agent platforms, and also the different kind of mer merchants and all the PSPs and different kind of networks as well.

Grace Shao (07:06)

I see. So I’m I’m gonna challenge you again on this way. I brought it up already earlier, but why would clients then choose Clink instead of an established platform, given that it’s so important for trust, reliability, proven processes in in payment, right? Why would they choose you over another major platform?

Patrick (07:24)

Yeah, we we mentioned some names earlier like Stripe, Airwx, PayPal, right? And there’s so many of them. Actually, I think probably thousands of processors all over the world. So I think sometimes when when you just want to sell one product in a particular market, then a single PSP might satisfy what you want. but I think the trend here today is all the AI builders, we are all selling products. what do I?

So that means like if you do want to of course trip and water can cover majority of the market, but we see in emerging markets and all different places, like different processes have different advantages, right? And if you as a merchant want to maximize that, then you may have to connect with multiple PSPs. Also pricing is another concern that if you want to lower your cost on payment acceptance, then you may have to have multiple PSPs to lower your cost.

So Clink will be like helpful as a connector that we saw the problem cross bond trees that you have multiple markets by default and you have all different kind of local payment methods, especially for example, we have some solutions in India, in Latin America. So like we are beyond one processor, right? So that’s on the payment acceptance side. But also we see that the AI application today requires, well, not that complicated, but does require some sort of bidding.

Right, top ups and subscriptions. And if you want to build from scratch, that’s something extra. And if you stay with existing PSPs, that’s a solution. But the expansion may not be that flexible. So we see that clinks serve as a connector layer, but that’s for the human business, the co like the product side of monetization. But when agents come in, that the problem becomes bigger, right? Because the you you don’t know where the agent platforms from.

It could be Kodas, could be cloud, it could be Gemini or any vertical agent platform that you never heard of. It could be own, like Ermers or Open Cloud. Right. And on the other side, the merchant may, as we we just said, the merchant may have only a single processor, but they may have many. But for that particular issue, then if there are many, who’s doing the routing? And who is connecting the agent to a particular merchant and their processor?

Right, and then we see that a single processor may not be capable of solving all that problem at once.

Grace Shao (09:34)

I see, I see. so tell us like how you’re working with existing platforms too, because this is another interesting point when we talked offline, you were telling me you have actually a lot of partnerships with traditional payment platforms like such as Visa, whatnot. how do you fit into this stack here?

Patrick (09:50)

you mentioned Visa, right? So I wanna bring an interesting fact that Visa described Clink’s role as an agent enabler. So I think that captures very well. So like there’s so many agents out there today, right? The big names we just mentioned, and also lots of self deployed or vertical agent platforms, right? And then we see that all those agents have the need the the requirement or the demand to make payments.

to do transactional for the user that trusts them. So but however that agents may not be able to integrate with our like Visa system. Right? Visa requires you to have a PCI because agent may not be able to touch the credential information. And if for self-deployed then like we don’t know like what is being uploaded and all that, all the security reasons and privacy concerns are there. So as the agent enabler

We process all that credentials, all that sensitive information. So we connect with the visa for all the like pass key verification, the mandate creation, intent verification, all that. So we perform that on behalf on the agents. And also so that that means we turn on or we enable the existing merchants to be able to connect with visa’s network securely or in a certified way. So that’s how we play with it.

existing I mean like schemes like a visa building a network also similar for MASCAR. And you mentioned some other big commerce platforms like Shopify and so I think Shopify is highly complementary for to to to zero, right, for sure. And there it’s already giving the merchants a catalog, a card, a great system. And they’re like a great pro it provides great solution for the merchant to easily

set up your own site and start selling goods. And we’re not going to rebuild all that. It’s it’s just simply not feasible and we see that the ecosystem is super strong. And we want to be add on to the ecosystem. Right? We see that added to like being a plugin for example, then we will turn on Shopify’s merchant to be able to like agent ready. Right. We build that agent readiness into the merchants. doesn’t matter it’s Shopify or WooCommerce or Mikado or so so many like open source

building platforms and commerce systems. We see all of them are being like like have their own adoption in different marketplaces and then the role of Clink is not going to replace all like any of them. And we want to be like add on to them. We solve the problem that the merchants at this point may not be aging ready and we want to make them aging ready. So that comes back to the earlier question that the role of Clink as a connector

Grace Shao (12:23)

Really interesting because basically, actually, you’re not trying to take the payment companies pie, you’re not trying to take the merchants business either. Then who are you charging in between how are you making money? Are you taking a cut from say visa and the transaction fee, or are you taking are are you making the merchants pay you for your service?

Patrick (12:42)

in in general the goal will be having the merchant pay us. But we are seeing different like from our own business models, right? Different monetization paths that if the merchant in our network that we have the influence on the consumer agent side, that we have the potential of charging them the billing management. So the the billing is not just to human billing but also to agent billing. That agent billing includes like

help the agent to check out and process that information, process the aging side of credentials that to allow the merchant to have the order and we capture all the credentials and the intent of all that. So that’s a potential of charging the merchants on that. And also we see the card schemes having some solutions to treat the agent and the everybody on the path being a like

the the the search changing or GEO side of thing that you have the potential of charging a fee for for the influencing capability. So I think in general today we want to build the ecosystem and having more and more users, agents and merchants on board and the monetization path will be clear and across all the actors over the ecosystem.

Grace Shao (13:46)

I see. Okay. Well, there’s often a disconnect between the merchant brand people and how they see, you know, payment versus what the infrastructure is behind the payment. ex explain to us like why there’s that mis disconnect, I guess.

Patrick (13:59)

Well, the the customer sees the merchant becomes the merchant they own the product, right? The price, a promise, and for e commerce is a fulfillment as well. And underneath that the connect the process actually connects the payment and the network and the process the transaction. So and there’s the issuer that decides whether to approve it, to decline it, and there might be fraud, credentials tax and settlement, all that. So those roles matter and when something fails.

So who made the promise, who improved the payment, right? Who processed the pre the payment, who protects the credentials, right? Who should handle the fraud, who’s responsible for that, who owns the liability. So I think the agent e commerce adds another actor and the chain becomes even more important. I think the the biggest difference in agent e commerce is when we look at from physical store to e commerce, right? like the ultimate decision makers do human.

But with Gene Commerce, with the autonomy that the agent is performing, does a potential the decision making is from the agent. Then is that decision making legitimate? So those questions are still remains and not being solved clearly. So all that we see that the clinic’s role is to try to carry that authority and the transaction context and all that across the trend. So again, come back to the definition of connector.

So we connect all the parties and try to pass through the information, the authority, across the chain, across the rails.

Grace Shao (15:23)

I see. We can double click on the safety and liability side of things later. I do find that quite fascinating. But it one thing you just brought up that was quite fascinating is that it agents will have autonomy. However, even though they have autonomy, the money, the feat of money is not theirs, right? So how do we understand that relationship if your agent is out there spending your money? do you always have to give them consent like before they go out? Or

Potentially what we’re gonna see in the future is agents literally just like going out there buying things without you even knowing they’re purchasing things.

Patrick (15:55)

Well that that’s a good question, all right. And I think the step by step would would just describe that agent in the future that like shopping fully autonomously it’s possible, right? But I I just think it’s not there because the trust is not there yet. So all the we we see all the demand is being delegated. So that means you as a human that you have some requirement, you have some demand and you want to make some purchases that essentially the demand is from human.

And the agents help you discover, help you to make some decisions, but maybe not for for the final decision. Right. So we see that as like involving pass. So but but as you just said, after all, the agents spend your own money, right? Spend your asset, see, spend your fiat. So we see that for today, in some case by case, like just one-time purchases.

That the user or the human will set up intent, give enough contact to the to the agent and the sign off on that. The sign off could be like a passkey, like we with a signature. Or it could be like A P two kind of a protocols, right? So there’s many actors in the industry try to solve that issue. But after that I see

Like the agent later on will do the the sourcing and do the patriotization as long as the falling fall under that mandate or instruction that was given, then we approve it. But essentially if we come back, see like where the orange and the context from, that’s from the user. So that’s for like a one-time instruction. But for sometimes if the merchant is trusted, like a digital service you always buy or digital you always top up frequently, then you can set up a recurring mandate.

Saying, okay, for this particular product or this particular merchant. as long as like over two hundred dollars a week or like every top up is a five dollar, that that’s fine. Then the agent does not have to receive or like get your approval every single time. But rather it’s just like a one time setup in the very early. But the setup or the mandate or instruction had to be super clear saying, okay, this is a trusted merchant. And we like it’s it’s fine for the agent to keep top up on that.

Grace Shao (17:53)

It’s like auto renewal but the without like resubscription.

Patrick (17:57)

Yeah. Well

I think the this is a little bit different, right? People are saying like if from merchant side if you give the merchant’s car and then merchant tell the merchant to do auto reload, yeah that that sometimes will achieve the same outcome. But I think the role is different. So on that side is merchant W and on this way it’s like the agent top up, like the actor is different. Right. And I think in general it’s like you trust the agent more or a tr tr or trust the merchant more.

Grace Shao (18:19)

Mm-hmm.

Patrick (18:24)

Right, that we see a lot of issues like disputes or chargebacks from the merchants actually deduct money, debit money from the user without that without the the the approval. And then with the agent being the actor that and also clean in the middle, then like we we actually protect the user. Right when the when the agent yeah, got

Grace Shao (18:28)

Mm mm.

I see what you mean. The ball

the ball’s back in the buyer’s court, kind of like the actual intent comes from that. It’s very interesting while we’re talking. I was thinking about a conversation I had with Ali Baba and Tencent recently. Both of them obviously are exploring agentic commerce. And then for them, you know, the biggest hurdle is how to manage this liability issue with who approves the payment. And obviously they both have payment systems embedded. So on the Baba side with Quinn.

Patrick (18:46)

Exactly. Right.

Grace Shao (19:09)

It’s really interesting. They’re saying that even though they’re doing agentic commerce, actually every time the money is gonna go out of your account, they’re still gonna push out a human verification kind of notification. You still have to like manually take that responsibility and press that button. On the Tencent side, I think they’re exploring the idea of creating a separate ReChat payment account, like kind of like two separate accountings, like two separate accounts.

And then one account will just potentially have very limited amount of money for the agent to play with. So you kind of just gave the agent like you know access to that one account, but not your full account. I don’t know. It’s just very interesting. I I’m kind of going on a rant, but it is funny because, like, on the other hand, it could potentially become like a scenario where essentially you give a credit card to your like unhinged teenage daughter and they would just go rogue and buy anything. yes. but let’s talk about agentic commerce.

Patrick (20:07)

No, no, I was just saying that which just is right, that just like giving a teenager your your child a card, right? And then you in in you don’t know what they’re gonna s spend and but after all you know them, right? But for Asian, I think the issue is like they may not have a trust yet, like fully trusted. So that’s what you mentioned, the Tencent has a weChat card and also the the Q and they they want the user to prove that every single time. And we see that that’s because the

the the different level of or different like I mean the path of payment being developed in in the country is different. So China has moved to the e-wallet and has very few dispute and chargebacks. So that means when comes to this particular situation, I think it’s just we we skip the credit card time. Like we skip the credit card UA and then move into the bank based or U wallet based directly. But if you look at the the

Grace Shao (20:49)

Why is that? What what

Sorry, my question is more like, why are there less dispute because it’s a U wallet? Wouldn’t like cat merchants still charge you if they want to charge you? Like if you’d like subscribe to certain things?

Patrick (21:02)

the the

because yeah.

yeah, so there’s two side of like if the the the payment is one side from the buyer to the seller, right, and then that’s real time transfer. And then we all know that today you have to scan your face in China, right? Or use a fingerprint to authorize the payment. And in those cases like the the dispute or charge back it become nearly impossible or or not necessary. And owning with a card card yeah, yeah, it’s so hard.

Grace Shao (21:23)

I see.

Like fraud is harder.

Patrick (21:37)

And then for for the auto debit thing then indeed and Alipay and WeChat has a compliance check and they revoke a lot of merchants auto debit. And now if you go want to receive the auto debit, it has to be super critical and then describe your business and the models clearly to the payment team and they will approve that. And it’s merchant by merchant of approval today. Unlike previously, you may either two turn that on. So but come back like when we

we see that issue particularly in card system, right? And then because like we we all know the disputes and chargebacks are all fraud, right? And like it’s just like so popular. Well not popular, it’s a common to see, right, in in the United States and in Europe as well. And that’s that’s why Visa has the entire chargeback management system to protect the the rights of the consumers. Right. so when they come to a genetic word that that create the the convenience that

because it is card based or the credential based that the user may not necessarily to approve every single transaction. So that brings convenience. But again that brings the risk, right? But however, thanks to the the chargeback system that has been developed over decades, the the risk can be like manipulated or to be like managed properly. so that’s why we we need the mandate system, we need the instruction to

to validate afterwards where when something really is bad then we come back to see if whether the transaction was being authorized properly by the human. And if it is, then well, probably the chargeback or dispute will not go through. Right. And so that mech mechanism does not e exist in Chinese payment industry today. So that that’s why that’s what I’m saying thinking is like may maybe the reason that they have to use a small amount of like a sub account, subcar.

Or a ask you as a human to approve every single time. And but honestly I think that actually yeah. So I actually Yeah.

Grace Shao (23:26)

I see, okay. That’s so nuance. Yeah, yeah, interesting.

okay, so but let’s talk about agentic commerce. So I think so many people have confusions around what really agentic commerce means. it’s you know, is it just that like basically like you said, you go out there, your agents are out there like going rogue and buying you things, or agentic commerce more understood? Like there is a process right now being built out. Like, help us understand what gender commerce means. What is the use case for agentic commerce right now, and are we actually seeing

it being proliferated in the real like real life right now.

Patrick (23:59)

yeah, yeah. So I think agent cameras is a very big word, right? And then it has many aspects and the dedicated execution. like I think that’s the most important happening right now ‘cause the the as I said earlier, the the the demand is still from the human and then the the product could be recommended by the chatbot or the agent. But after all that the the final decision may still come in from

the the human at most of time at today, right? But moving forward it could be the agent, with your authorization or understand you better, like has more context of you from the lifetime conversations, right? And then make a decision for you as long as the decision actually sits fitting the policy that you have set for the agent, right? So that’s another sort of like a next level of agent e commerce. so I think today

We see more and more like agent being an actor, but the actor could be on the sourcing side, it could be on the queuing side. And it really depends on how you as a user trust the agent. So in general I think agent commerce is very big but in general, like e commerce is a long chain, like doing all the actions from from the very beginning where the intent started and where to to the final the others play placed or the fulfilled. Right. So

in that long pass, any part that agent take kicks in, right, I think it’s agent commerce. But most of the time right now the agent is in the consumer side to provide help sourcing because the efficiency that they search products, right? And they may discover some very rare product that you may never be able to find. Right. There was a joke back at the time that probably as a human you read only first page of the Google search results, right? Super clear.

Right. The best place to hide their body is a second page of Google Search Results. But agent can easily search through twenty pages and get all different products or they they just have more context of you. They know your taste, for example, moving forward. And then they may be able to find like from a very real merchant, right? You you never know. Right. So that that’s a great potential that we see agent can unlock. And I think today that’s

Some of the aha moments I’ve talked to many people on Gene Commerce is the product search or recommendation site that the the the agent gave them some such suggestion or recommendation they never thought of as themselves.

Grace Shao (26:14)

That’s interesting. But I also think wouldn’t it make more sense for enterprise use case given the nature of like you said, sometimes it’s repeat purchases, it’s not always evolving. would would would that make more sense? Like if you’re a construction company, you’re buying like cement every year or whatever for this project, you know exactly the quality, the the the price you want to pay. your lumber company, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, wouldn’t that be much easier for agentic commerce to be in

Patrick (26:40)

Yeah.

Grace Shao (26:42)

integrated, implemented.

Patrick (26:43)

I think that’s a great point. but I I I do want to call that those cases are easier because they’re repeat repeatable, right? They’re bonded and you need to verify. it doesn’t matter the the buyer is enterprise or a pioneer of consumers, right? So it’s rather the behavior or the product itself define that the that use cases is more trustworthy or like you are more comfortable because to r like rebuy laundry stuff for example, right? And then

Grace Shao (27:00)

I see, yeah.

Patrick (27:09)

You don’t like that you always use a single brand and you you probably most of the time don’t want to try something new then then just a repeatable ask agent to to keep doing that. I think that makes it total total sense, right? To have the agent do that delegation, right? And like to to help you execute. And but like if it’s enterprise or like the pioneers of consumers, I don’t I’m not sure. It’s always like a some group, a small group of people.

They’re they’re interested in trying everything new, right? I like all the new stuff they they on board. I think those people are really push the word forward and help us to do the early adoptions and explore all the issues and helping improve the systems. It could be some pioneer of the enterprise, we don’t know, right? Small teams like startup teams, they are always willing to try stuff new. It’s all possible, but we don’t we don’t limit there. But I think you’re right that we use the

a small amount, repeatable and you need to verify purchases, to build the trust between the consumer and the agent. But the consumer could be human, it could be enterprise.

Grace Shao (28:11)

walk us through that case study ‘cause you were telling about it beforehand called Hello Minds. That was quite fascinating.

Patrick (28:16)

yeah, so it was a it was a short story. Actually, it was quick. when we were at Supreme in Singapore, they came to our booth saying, okay, they they see a clear need from their customer, they want to do transactional stuff. But as an agent platform they are not able to do that because they talk to Visa and then it’s just simply difficult for for them to to receive a PCI and all that in a short time. Right. So

then visa recommended us because we as aging enabler we’re designed to to turn on the capability of the aging platforms to do transactional. So and then we we just work with them super easily. There they have our skill pre-installed for their platform and then the the user be able to tell the HelloMind I want to buy this and that and then the system will actually get the user into our aging portal.

and add the card and we will go through the entire visa process for the verification, for device registration, and then it just happened automatically. So I think that’s a great example seeing like out of like all those vertical agents, they see the clear customer requirement, but for the role that they are today, they see a longer path to achieve that by themselves. And they see the they are seeking for for the help and for the experience partnership as Clink.

from the ecosystem to help them. So and then I think it it’s super clear for for Clink as well. We like to help them, right? And help other agents because our goal is being a connector. We’re now building our own consumer side agent. Of course we can do it, but we see it’s just like a payment method, right? Different people, different location, different markets have different preferences. Hello Minds is a great Asian platform over Hong Kong and and APAC area. So that’s kind of

like a possibly a capability that Clink provides actually help all their agent platforms to build their own and to satisfy or serve their customer better.

Grace Shao (30:12)

I see. Okay. Yeah. Cause you did say you’re agent agnostic. So that makes sense what we’re saying here now. but if the feature is, you know, many different agents acting on behalf of users, what does the payment layer need to do especially well then? Is is it in the identity, authorization, routing, settlement, security? Like how how I guess for you guys in the middle layer, what is the core, core offering that you have for everyone?

Patrick (30:36)

yeah, I think you’re right that like a one model may not fit all, right? Like a one base model or one agent may not fit all and the one payment solution may not fit all, right? Payment methods and the acquires, carnet was so many things. So all you mentioned, like identity, association, routing settlement, security, all of them actually matters. Right. So for us like we

We’re not going to like just build a single rear or like being a connector, we want to optimize every single layer, right? To be a connector that brought like try to bring every parties all together and closer and then try to solve the friction along the path for the agent to perform transactions. So in general that’s Klink’s goal at this point. We want to create a smooth word for the agent.

from talking to users and to the placing order on the merchant side and also have moving help moving the the fiat funds from from consumer to the merchant as it is today to have ‘cause we we see that as most smooth because after decades of development, the merchant solution, their commerce systems, their payment stack are being mature.

And there’s no reason to rebuild all of that just for the agent, right? And the return on that investment could be super low. So that’s why we see that as an evolving pass but rather a revolution pass.

Grace Shao (31:59)

look, I think let’s talk about the the most sensitive bit now. I want to talk about the trust and safety bit. So, you know, you do emphasize, you know, you’re building reliability, you’re building safety into the product and everything. But as the consumer, it still seems like really, really unsafe or scary to try out a new payment system. You know, as the average consumer, we will still default to big names like Visa and MasterCard, even if we know we’re paying them much more, right?

so help us understand that. Like what what is what is a trust barrier here and how do you build that up? and I guess who bears that liability? So hypothetically, I’m using Clink to buy something on whatever, let’s say Amazon. Okay. If something goes wrong, am I supposed to go to Amazon? I’m or am I supposed to go to you? Or is Amazon Amazon gonna come chase you down? What what is the relationship here?

Patrick (32:51)

Yeah, yeah, good question. I think so we are being agent enabled there or the connector here. So that means we are not the merchant of the record. So you still own your order on Amazon, right? So that’s our relationship with the merchant as well. We are not going to replace a merchant, repla take over their customer relationship. That’s not what we’re going to do. So what we’re doing is here, like it’s being a connector. That means we pass along the information.

like the payment credentials and all that, then we also capture your intent instruction that the the user talk to the agent and then send that over to Visa. So after all you’re still seeing your Visa card paid Amazon. I’m just using Apple as example. You after all you still see that you have an order with Amazon. And then you still pay with your regular car, right? Just the the in the middle the two actors, one is the agent. So agent performs the excursion.

as you authorized. And the clin perform as another set of actors and take over the agent’s direct execution, but help you and your agent to place the order on Amazon because we have been certified by Visa. And we have certified by the payment industry because we are PCI compliant. PCI but by the way, PCI means that we can securely manage all the payment credentials, right? Being authorized by the certified agents that we can

persist and the process user’s kind numbers, right? And given that we have capability to pass that over to Amazon. But after all, still you place an order. We’re just solving the problem that agent may not be able to directly touch the credentials or you don’t trust the agent too, right? And I mean at this point. So that’s why the we as a connector in the middle, we persist your critical information and then pass along to the merchants. And also we

Help you validate the policy that you set for the agents and the the initial instruction. For example, you authorize the agent to buy a shoe, right, and under $100. And somehow the agent got mad and bought you a t-shirt for $200. Then clearly it does not match the initial instruction. And we will block you before we send that over to the particular merchant that the agent wanted. Right. So that provides additional layer of protection. And also because like all that is being also certified by the visa.

Like because we are the first agent enabler and the agent side of partnership with Visa in APAC in in the Visa intelligent commerce program. So all that is being like even though it’s still pilot, we see the potential that we can add additional layer of protection and also additional layer of privacy.

Grace Shao (35:23)

Really interesting because I actually have two questions. That means number one, I mean, this is not unique to you guys, like, but you essentially have a database everyone’s credit card. There’s definitely a risk there, right? And then the second part of the question is that, like you said, when you don’t trust your agents to touch your credit cards now. So, say one day the education has been done, the market has been educated, agents have been normalized. Five years down the line, everyone is using agents to do shopping.

Does that just completely skip over Clink then if we’re all just gonna give our agents our credit card numbers, if we even still have credit card numbers, whatever payment look like back in the future? Would that just actually frankly o omit the the the role of Clink then?

Patrick (36:03)

that that’s a good great question, but I don’t think that will happen because for like even though the agent development all that then the the the concern to like you still need additional layers of protection because it’s like we are the neutral layer and give you the additional protection, right? Even though you trust the agent much but you still want the third party. It’s just like at the very beginning

of the e-commerce in China, you have Taobao, you have the consumer, like you have the buyer and the seller. But you still need to about just LP in the middle, right? To prov provide you that layer of security and you you want another layer. Yeah, so a a neutral standpoint to to to also right to to monitor, to audit the agent behavior. And also from the car scheme or the merchant side, they want some additional layer of protection as well. Right. No one can simply trust a single agent can perform all of that.

Grace Shao (36:38)

See what I mean?

Patrick (36:54)

Right. It’s just like additional yeah.

Grace Shao (36:55)

I see what mean. So there’s guardrails

built into you as like the guardian almost of all this.

Patrick (37:01)

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. the an an a layer of protection and I think Clink by the time it will build the trust across the consumer side and also build the trust across the merchant side. Because we see that the potential of having more a merchants being aging readiness and into the aging ready merchant network will bring them the advantage across the five years development that you just mentioned.

Grace Shao (37:24)

So I have a question. I I have two three questions to wrap this up. first one is what is your vision of the future of agentic commerce then? Like where do you see this as going? You can start with this, and then I want to throw you another one first just for you to think about in the back of your mind, What is the smartest question you’ve heard someone else ask you about the agentic economy that I have not not asked? So

Patrick (37:44)

Sure.

I think yeah, I again I guess we can get started with agent commerce, how that will go and aging payment. I see that has a long way to go. That as you said, like you have a child and like if you have a child that they grow up, they become adults, they become mature. And actually at this point we see that agents are growing fast, but are they close to the AGI?

Right, are they close to a particular point that that they’re being smart enough enough to do all that? So I’m not sure about that. And on the scare side, if they are really that smart and as another adult, do you really trust them to manage all your assets? Right. So those are like I I see those questions are tough to understand, are tough to answer, but at this point we see that agents are being super good or super useful as a tool, right, as a helper.

to help you do the excursion to do all the repeatable work or like all that you want to skip. And the sum of part of the commerce is being part of that. But I also see that shopping is a great journey, right? I think you as a lady understand what I’m saying. So I I mean as I mean I I typically don’t do enjoy that process, but rather just get what I want, right? But my wife and they do enjoy like the journey of exploring products. I

I think those are entertainments, not just commerce or shopping. So those will never be replaced by agent. But it could be like you I I know there’s some services in in China I’ve heard of that. like you you got a guy or like a girl that accompany you or walk through the the big malls and do shopping all together, like a company, right? It could be like in the future those accompanying role replaced by agent. It could be. But still provides a a great journey.

help you sourcing and find a great product that fits you. But I think that also would be a very pleasant experience. But I I think in general like for now we see that it’s a delegation for e-commerce for most of that valuable part. it’s not a new demand. But we also see for the digital service side and also for the like a

Mostly on digital and the model requirements or all the model f model side of features, those are new requirements. But it it it replacing a lot of the previous like data sourcing work or like investing work investigation work that you’ve done as a worker. But this may be replaced by agents as well, and along that path will generate a different requirement or different demand for genetic payment. So those are new, I think.

And in general along the past, hopefully we see that agents and humans in a word that can both like pay and get paid. Right. So that like today the the we’re we’re talking about AI applications, but in the future the the the product may be served by agent. But you never know. So it’s like a human to human, human to agent, agent to human. We’ve seen an interesting case that Waymo plants order online.

get a human to close the door. Right. If s a passenger got off the the the ride and forgot to close the door, and then you you place an order and get a human to do that. Right. So it’s like aging to human, human to aging. We never know. It’s that’s what you said, agen agent economy, right? Just not not commerce. So I I think like that word will eventually come and along the way that we have the base models to develop being smarter and also a lot of

Issues like around identity, around trust in general to solve. And then that’ll that’ll be the case. And then to a second question, like the smarter question, I think is like really come to that when when intelligence or labor or execution becomes abundant, right? what remains valuable? Right, or die, right? And do we still need transactions?

Because whatever you want, like the goodies or the services is being so abandoned and probably at no cost at all. So where is the transaction? Where is the value? Right? I think then that I think that’s a smarter question or tough question could always come to me saying, like really like if we as a society or the entire world develop who develop to that level of then what what’s what what are you p people paying for? We never know.

Right. And maybe that that’s a time that come back to okay, the the taste and the the people that creating the value that I I don’t know, I just don’t know. I think that’s a very broad question, open question. And we may not have an answer when really that comes. Yeah. What becomes valuable and what are people paying for?

Grace Shao (42:07)

First, I wanted to say it’s really scary to think that we potentially have machine overlords telling us what to do and working for them. second of all, I think the second half is something that’s really interesting. It’s it’s not just in the whole abundance of a gentic era. It’s just like you’re seeing it play out already. Like even people are saying, you know, luxury is a structural short because why who is still buying luxury? When you have more money, are we really spending money on putting

Patrick (42:15)

Well, that’s a bit scary.

Grace Shao (42:35)

you know, brands and logos on our bodies anymore or is society moving towards like paying for experiences, praying for health, paying for, you know, things that actually cannot be so easily replicated because, you know, logos can be replicated easily these days. It it’s kinda interesting. So it it will be interesting once intelligence is abundant, what will happen. But then I do think that question is also overgeneralizing humanity because we do forget that, you know, not everyone

Is working in a career that actually requires intelligence. I’m not saying people are not intelligent. I’m just saying intelligence as a currency to for, you know, salary or, you know, whatever or or capital gain is actually not for everyone. And if anything, then do we say the value is more in craftsmanship, laborist work, you know, you know.

Patrick (43:08)

Yeah.

Grace Shao (43:28)

experience and different things. It’s just very interesting, but for sure it’s already moving away from objects, like tangible objects, like where people really want to pay, right?

Patrick (43:36)

Yeah. Right. And you th you mentioned labor go go ahead, no, that’s a sign. No.

No, I was just saying like a labor as well. Like the the labor may even the work may not require intelligence, but that work and like the labor side of work may still be replaced by robotics. And with a small robotic, that that’s even more scary, right? Like as a move yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So but but hopefully we we humans still aren’t in in control when that comes.

Grace Shao (43:54)

I s I see where you stand in all of this, Patrick. I see where you stand.

I don’t know, Patrick, the way you’ve pro you painted the futures, we have machine overlords telling us to close the door. Why are we even leaving the house then? okay, jokes aside, I have my last question for you, which is the question I ask every single guest that comes on. What is one differentiative you you hold, something that you think is maybe against consensus or people still you think get wrong or underestimate?

Patrick (44:12)

Yeah.

I I think the two two sides I want to answer that. One is that I think we’re we’re spending too much attention or like on the itching payment side require a new brand new rail like broad chain a crypto rail. So I’m not saying that’s wrong and we see the potential of the stablecoin or the capability of blockchain that for cross border settlement, machine too much micropayments, all that, but like a a reel that

Like the the real exist because we move value, right? And most of the time today the buyers and the merchant that they use VAT and we see we may not spend enough attention to solving that side of the rails issue. Right. So but I I see that on the long run, of course, the blockchain aspect stable coin will have a great value and being super useful. But at this point if we want the agent to be capable of handling payment.

instruction doing all that payments and we probably want to solve more issues around the the fiat rail and to to make that smooth. So that’s one thing. A second thing is I I think like even you’re not a payment in the payment industry you may hear of a lot of protocol names, right? A P two, UCP, ACP, SPT, and it’s just so many of them, right? And I’m not saying like

like every single protocol as the has their values and standards and so try to solve a particular issue or a like a vertical scenario, right? Or some of them being try trying to be generic and some of them well like we’ll want to solve the issue of product discovery and all that. And but I feel just too many of them. Like just way too many of them. And that creates a barrier or creates a a like confusion for the merchant.

And for other actors in the ecosystems, like which one should I adopt? Which one should I integrate? And the more and more are coming out, right? Every single player has their own standard. And as a merchant, I may feel like so confused, like which one I should adopt. I think really that the entire ecosystem will want to align or I mean to get some agreement.

Well, I mean not necessarily a single one or two protocols, but to have some fundamental rules in place that people understand okay, that’s how we want move and that’s the direction we go and people start investing on that. And eventually some generic or universal protocol that’s been agreed by everybody, like by the majority of the actor in the market, they’ll come out. And that’s a time where I see that

agents or the merchants will be more comfortable. Otherwise it’ll be too many of them for for the ecosystem to advance to next step to to next stage that agents and merchants are like feel so like worry free to onboard. Otherwise they feel like okay if I bought I onboard A C P last year, right? And they’re really like like not all agents are supporting them. Right. And then if we are on board U C P this year, we see other agents not support them. So like those kind of issues are being

like a making just like a too too fragmented. And as a generic like a pass forward, I I I really want that we we somehow get aligned in one particular vision, the entire ecosystem and try to push that new outcome.

Grace Shao (47:38)

There needs to be some standardization consistency to help agentic commerce go forward. All right, Patrick. Thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate all your insights. I’ve learned a ton. if anyone’s interested, feel free to reach out to Patrick or I’ll put the link in the podcast show notes as well as on Substack notes. thanks again, Patrick. Speak soon again.

Patrick (47:56)

thank you. Thank you, Grace, for having me here.

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The Future of Agentic Payments with Clink Founder Patrick Wu

AI Proem Podcast

The Future of Agentic Payments with Clink Founder Patrick Wu