AI Banking Revolution: Agora and FPT Target Southeast Asia's Financial Sector

SANTA CLARA, Calif. & HANOI, Vietnam – February 24, 2026 – A landmark strategic partnership announced today between real-time engagement leader Agora (NASDAQ: API) and Vietnamese IT giant FPT Corporation is set to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across Southeast Asia’s burgeoning banking and financial services industry. The collaboration aims to merge Agora's global real-time communication infrastructure with FPT's deep regional expertise and enterprise AI solutions, promising a new era of digital customer engagement for millions.

This alliance arrives at a pivotal moment for Southeast Asia's financial landscape. The region, home to a young and increasingly digital-native population, is experiencing an unprecedented shift in consumer behavior. Customers now expect seamless, secure, and instantaneous financial services, a demand that is pushing traditional banks to rapidly modernize their legacy systems. The partnership between the NASDAQ-listed Agora and FPT, a titan of Vietnam's tech scene, seeks to provide the tools for this transformation.

By integrating Agora’s Conversational AI and low-latency voice and video capabilities with FPT's established enterprise AI ecosystem, the partnership will enable financial institutions to deploy highly intelligent and interactive services. The goal is to move beyond simple, text-based chatbots to sophisticated, secure, and human-like interactions across any digital channel.

“By combining FPT’s enterprise AI capabilities with Agora’s real-time conversational infrastructure, we enable banking and financial institutions across Southeast Asia to deliver more efficient, responsive, and trusted digital experiences at scale,” said Mr. Mark Hall Andrew, Chief Revenue Officer of FPT Smart Cloud, in the official announcement.

The New Frontier of Customer Experience

At the heart of the collaboration is the drive to solve a core challenge for modern banks: scaling personalized customer service without compromising quality. As financial institutions expand their digital offerings, they face immense pressure to manage high volumes of customer interactions, from simple account inquiries to complex loan applications and insurance claims.

The joint solution tackles this head-on by enabling the deployment of AI-powered virtual assistants that can handle a vast array of tasks. These are not your typical frustrating phone trees. Leveraging FPT's conversational intelligence and Agora's real-time voice technology, these AI agents can understand natural language, conduct human-like conversations, and seamlessly escalate to a human advisor—complete with a full transcript of the interaction—when necessary. This hybrid, human-in-the-loop model ensures both efficiency and a high-quality customer experience.

FPT’s success in this domain is already proven. The company’s AI solutions are currently deployed by over 40 banks globally. At Sacombank, the deployment of FPT's AI Voice Agents in its contact center led to a remarkable 58% increase in call handling capacity, enabling the system to manage over 41,000 calls per day. Similarly, Vietcombank utilizes FPT AI Agents on messaging channels to resolve common customer queries about cards, loans, and exchange rates, freeing up human staff to focus on more complex, value-added work. Home Credit Vietnam has also leveraged the technology to automate millions of customer interactions each month.

By integrating Agora's ultra-low-latency real-time communications, these capabilities are supercharged. Banks can now embed secure, high-quality video consultations for wealth management, co-browse documents for loan applications in real-time, or perform instant video-based identity verification, all within their own branded mobile apps and websites.

Navigating a Complex Web of Trust and Regulation

While the promise of AI-driven efficiency is alluring, its deployment in the highly regulated financial sector of Southeast Asia is fraught with challenges. Financial institutions operate under a complex patchwork of national laws governing data privacy, consumer protection, and operational resilience. From Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) and its pioneering FEAT (Fairness, Ethics, Accountability, and Transparency) principles for AI, to Vietnam's comprehensive Decree 13 on data protection, the compliance bar is set exceptionally high.

Recognizing this, the Agora-FPT partnership has placed trust, security, and compliance at the core of its joint offering. The solution is architected to meet these stringent requirements, enabling banks to innovate while maintaining adherence to regional regulations and internal governance standards. This involves ensuring that data is handled securely, customer consent is managed properly, and AI models are fair and transparent.

“As banking and financial services across Southeast Asia continue to digitize, innovation must go hand in hand with trust, security, and compliance,” noted Tony Zhao, CEO of Agora. “By combining Agora’s real-time conversational intelligence with FPT’s enterprise AI ecosystem, we enable banking and financial institutions to engage customers in a more natural, efficient, and reliable way—at scale.”

This focus on regulatory adherence provides a critical differentiator. For a bank in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur, adopting a new technology isn't just about its features; it's about whether the vendor understands the local regulatory environment and has built a solution that won't create compliance nightmares. The partnership's combined expertise—FPT’s on-the-ground experience with regional regulators and Agora’s global security standards—aims to provide that assurance.

A Strategic Play for Regional Tech Leadership

The alliance is more than just a product integration; it is a significant strategic maneuver that underscores Vietnam's growing influence as a technology hub in Southeast Asia. For FPT, partnering with a global, U.S.-based leader like Agora is a powerful validation of its AI capabilities and a springboard for its regional ambitions. It elevates FPT from a national champion to a key player in the region's digital transformation.

For Agora, the partnership provides an invaluable pathway into the fast-growing but fragmented Southeast Asian market. Rather than building a regional presence from scratch, Agora can leverage FPT's established relationships, deep market understanding, and existing client base of over 40 financial institutions. This synergy of global technology and local expertise creates a formidable competitive advantage against other players who may offer either a generic AI platform or a standalone communication API, but not a deeply integrated, market-specific solution.

Moving forward, both companies have stated their commitment to working closely with regional banks, insurers, and system integrators to accelerate the adoption of these advanced technologies. The partnership signals a shared vision for the future of finance in Southeast Asia—one that is more digital, more intelligent, and fundamentally more human-centric, powered by a new generation of real-time conversational AI.