SotaTek, a provider of AI-driven workflow automation and agentic AI solutions, has released a framework detailing how Southeast Asian digital banks can leverage next-generation AI technologies to streamline merchant onboarding. As digital banking adoption accelerates across the region, onboarding millions of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) efficiently and compliantly has become a critical competitive differentiator.
Unlike traditional banks that rely on card-network partnerships or legacy merchant-acquirer pipelines, digital-first banks increasingly depend on merchant onboarding as a core revenue engine, with each transaction from onboarded merchants generating meaningful income. However, many banks still grapple with manual processes, high drop-off rates, poor onboarding experiences, and a limited number of onboarding specialists to support less tech-savvy merchants.
SotaTek's framework highlights how agentic AI, voice AI, and intelligent workflow orchestration can dramatically reduce friction, shorten onboarding time, and widen market reach. According to the company, next-generation onboarding technology relies on agentic systems that can reason, guide, adapt, and self-correct across complex onboarding journeys. These systems act as a guided onboarding concierge, assisting merchants step-by-step, validating inputs and documents in real-time, and adapting instructions based on the merchant's level of digital literacy, thereby reducing dependency on human specialists.
"Many digital banks have fewer than 100 onboarding specialists but serve millions of potential merchants," said Meng Khong Tong, CEO of SotaTek US and Asia. "By combining agentic AI with OCR, behavioral signal detection, and intelligent workflow design, banks can deliver a personalized, human-like onboarding experience at scale. These systems don't just respond—they anticipate, guiding each merchant through a journey tailored to their readiness, needs, and digital literacy. Even non-tech-savvy merchants can get started confidently, with AI adapting to their pace and preferences."
Banks in Malaysia and Singapore operate in heavily regulated environments, requiring any AI deployment to be auditable, explainable, and integrated cleanly into cloud-native stacks such as AWS and Databricks. SotaTek continues to explore new applications of agentic AI in digital banking, working alongside ecosystem partners to co-design proof-of-concept solutions and accelerate time-to-market for these innovations.
