Sionic & Agentix link AI shopping to bank payments

Sionic has partnered with Agentix to connect AI shopping agents with instant bank-to-bank payments. The agreement targets commerce transactions carried out by software agents on behalf of consumers.

The partnership combines Sionic's direct bank payment system with Agentix's software, which turns merchant stock data into a format AI agents can read and use in transactions. Under the arrangement, Sionic will provide a shopping agent for consumers using its Bank Perks pass, while Agentix will make merchant inventory available for those agents to search and purchase.

The companies aim to address a growing area of online retail in which AI tools do more than recommend products or answer customer queries. In this model, software agents can search for goods, compare options and complete purchases within rules set by the consumer.

Sionic's agents will be able to pay directly from a user's bank account once a purchase decision has been made. Agentix's system presents merchant inventories in a machine-readable format and supports autonomous checkout with agent verification and fraud controls.

The result is a single flow linking product discovery and payment settlement without relying on card-based checkout. Sionic focuses on real-time account-to-account payments at the point of sale, while Agentix has concentrated on making online merchant systems usable by AI-driven commerce tools.

How it works

The partnership centres on two pieces of infrastructure: Sionic's instant payment technology, which lets consumers pay merchants directly from a bank account, and Agentix's "Agent to Agent" system, which allows shopping agents to interact with merchant inventory in a structured way.

By combining those systems, the companies aim to let an AI shopping agent discover a product, verify that it can transact with the merchant, and then complete a bank payment immediately. They say this could create a payer-to-payee framework for AI-agent transactions, with merchants, consumers and financial institutions all part of the same flow.

The move reflects growing interest across the payments and retail sectors in so-called agentic commerce, a term for transactions handled by AI agents acting with a customer's permission. For merchants, the appeal is a potential new route to demand if their catalogues can be surfaced directly inside AI-driven shopping tools. For payment providers and banks, the question is whether existing rails can support this activity securely and in real time.

Sionic's business has centred on instant bank payments for online, mobile and in-store purchases. Merchants that accept account-to-account payments can avoid card processing charges and receive funds within seconds, while consumers may receive rewards from participating merchants when using their bank accounts through digital wallets, according to the company.

Agentix focuses on the software layer between merchant eCommerce systems and autonomous AI tools. Its approach is designed to help AI agents discover products, complete transactions and initiate payments across online retail platforms without a conventional manual checkout journey.

Executive comments

Ronald Herman, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Sionic, described the tie-up as part of a wider shift in digital commerce.

"We're thrilled to partner with Agentix. Together, we're building the technology and trust layer behind a new era of commerce, where AI agents shop, pay, and earn Perks on a consumer's behalf, instantly and more securely," said Ronald Herman, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Sionic. "This is where commerce is headed, and Sionic intends to help lead the way."

Agentix presented the arrangement as a way for merchants to reach customers through AI-led channels as those channels begin to emerge.

"Agentic commerce is the next evolution of Ecommerce and our partnership with Sionic is helping lead the way. Together, we are unlocking a new revenue channel for merchants by enabling their products to be discoverable and purchasable through AI agents, while providing merchants and financial institutions a meaningful competitive edge in the emerging AI economy," said Hussain Punjani, Chief Executive Officer, Agentix.

The partnership also highlights a practical challenge for the sector: trust. If AI agents are to complete purchases without a consumer approving every stage, merchants and payment providers will need ways to verify agents, set transaction rules and detect fraud in real time. Sionic says it brings fraud intelligence for account-to-account payments, while Agentix says its checkout framework includes safeguards around agent verification.

That puts the deal at the intersection of two active areas in financial technology: the push for real-time payments and the effort to adapt online commerce systems for AI-driven interactions. Rather than focusing only on consumer chat interfaces, the companies are trying to build the underlying transaction rails that would allow those interactions to end in a completed purchase paid directly from a bank account.

Sionic's Instant Bank Pay service is already aimed at US financial institutions connected to real-time payment networks. Agentix's software is designed to work across eCommerce platforms by converting merchant inventory into transaction-ready data.