SBI Holdings and its cybersecurity subsidiary SBI EVERSPIN have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with South Korea's Everspin and KB Kookmin Card, a member of KB Financial Group, to jointly develop cross-border financial and payment services between Japan and Korea built around AI agents and digital assets. The agreement, announced on October 13, 2026, establishes a framework for phased studies and proof-of-concept initiatives.

The collaboration centers on KYA Trust Gateway, an AI agent trust and authorization management platform conceived by SBI EVERSPIN and jointly developed with Everspin. KYA, short for Know Your Agent, is designed to address a gap that has emerged as generative AI systems evolve from information-gathering tools into agents capable of booking services and executing transactions on behalf of users. As AI agents increasingly interact across corporate and national borders, verifying that an agent is legitimate, and restricting its actions to the scope of authority granted by its user, has become a prerequisite for broader deployment. The concept applies identity checks of the kind used for people, such as Know Your Customer, to software acting on a user's behalf.

Under the MoU, the companies will assume a scenario in which an AI agent operating in Japan connects to services in Korea. In the initial proof of concept, KYA Trust Gateway will verify the validity of the agent's digital credential and determine whether the agent can be trusted. Subsequent phases will expand to user delegation of authority and the management of service-specific access permissions, with the goal of allowing agents and services run by different companies to interoperate securely. The announcement describes studies and proofs of concept rather than a commercial launch and sets out no deployment timetable, making the outcome of the initial credential-verification test a milestone to watch.

Cross-Border Crypto Payments for Japanese Travelers in Korea

Beyond identity verification, the partnership extends into payments. The companies will explore connecting AI agents to KB Pay, the mobile payment service operated by KB Kookmin Card, within user-defined authorization limits. For transactions requiring confirmation, such as actual payment execution, the parties plan to test service models incorporating user approval processes.

A central use case involves Japanese travelers in Korea. In later phases, the partners intend to examine Korea-Japan cross-border payment proofs of concept linking digital assets held by Japanese visitors, including stablecoins, to the Korean merchant payment environment. Stablecoins are blockchain-based tokens designed to track the value of a reference asset, typically a fiat currency, and are increasingly examined for cross-border settlement because value can move across shared ledgers without routing through chains of correspondent banks. The work will cover the operational functions required for real-world deployment: payment and settlement, cancellations, refunds, and fraud detection.

Division of Responsibilities

Responsibilities are divided along national and technical lines:

• SBI Holdings will explore cross-border payment and settlement mechanisms using digital assets and will work on the issuance, management, and verification of the digital credentials underpinning agent trust, including potential applications of distributed ledger technology for auditing and third-party verification.
• SBI EVERSPIN will architect KYA Trust Gateway on the Japanese side and support integration with external services.
• Everspin will implement the security technologies for agent authentication and transaction reliability.
• KB Kookmin Card will validate KB Pay integration, including fraud detection, and assess extending the framework to broader financial and lifestyle services.

The four companies frame the effort as a first step toward a general-purpose Trust & Authorization infrastructure, with ambitions to commercialize AI agent-based services and eventually support cross-border services extending beyond Japan and Korea into global markets.

Source: Metaverse Post