SotaTek Introduces AI Framework to Transform Merchant Onboarding for Southeast Asian Digital Banks
TL;DR
SotaTek's AI framework gives digital banks a competitive edge by enabling efficient merchant onboarding to drive transaction revenue and expand market reach across Southeast Asia.
SotaTek's agentic AI system uses OCR, behavioral signals, and workflow orchestration to guide merchants through personalized, compliant onboarding journeys that adapt to their digital literacy.
This AI-powered approach makes banking more inclusive by helping non-tech-savvy merchants confidently join digital platforms, fostering economic participation and financial access across Southeast Asia.
Digital banks are replacing scripted bots with AI concierges that reason and self-correct, creating human-like onboarding experiences that anticipate merchant needs in real-time.
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SotaTek, a provider of AI-driven workflow automation and agentic AI solutions, has announced new insights and industry guidance on how banks across Southeast Asia can transform merchant onboarding using next-generation AI technologies. 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 for modern financial institutions.
Unlike traditional banks that rely heavily on card-network partnerships or legacy merchant-acquirer pipelines, digital-first banks in Southeast Asia increasingly depend on merchant onboarding as a core revenue engine. Each transaction made through onboarded merchants drives meaningful income, yet most banks still struggle with manual processes, high drop-off rates, poor onboarding experiences, and limited onboarding specialists to support merchants who may not be tech-savvy.
SotaTek's new 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, the next generation of onboarding technology relies not on scripted bots or static robotic process automation (RPA), but on agentic systems that can reason, guide, adapt, and self-correct across complex onboarding journeys. These systems can act as a guided onboarding concierge, assisting merchants step-by-step while validating inputs and documents in real-time. They adapt explanations and instructions based on the merchant's level of digital literacy and reduce dependency on human onboarding 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 optical character recognition (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 some of the region's most heavily regulated environments. As a result, any AI deployment must 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. For more information, visit https://www.sotatek.com.
Curated from NewMediaWire
