Two weeks before Amsterdam Fintech Event 2026, I told Rosalie Suurmeijer that AI stories are taking over pretty much our whole news section, and asked how the event handles agentic AI. She pointed me to Akkuro’s session on 7 October, with Bas Rapati of Van Lanschot Kempen and Thomas Vles of GoDutch Banking. Visa and Mastercard are building ways for AI agents to pay at checkout, and this summer the EU moved the start of its high-risk AI rules for credit scoring to December 2027.
| What you need to know |
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| 1AFE26's agentic AI panel runs on 7 October at 15:45 with Akkuro, Van Lanschot Kempen, ING and GoDutch Banking. The EU AI Act gets its own session on 8 October at 13:15, with speakers from ABN AMRO and Triodos Bank. |
| 2Under the AI Act, AI that evaluates a person's creditworthiness or sets a credit score is high-risk. Under the AI Omnibus, in force since 27 July 2026, those rules apply from 2 December 2027. |
| 3Visa unveiled Intelligent Commerce Connect in April so that AI agents can pay at checkout, and in June Worldline, ING and Mastercard ran a live agentic payment for a Dutch purchase with Mastercard Agent Pay. The ECB says more than 85 percent of large banks under European supervision already use AI in some form. |
| 4My read: the useful question at AFE26 is what an agent may do on its own, and who answers for it when it pays. |
The agentic AI panel takes place in the auditorium where we filmed the promo for AFE26, empty in September and full at last year’s edition.
From an assistant to an agent
When I asked how agentic AI shows up on the programme, Rosalie said:
One thing I want to focus on now is the session of Akkuro on the 7th of October. They are going to talk together with Bas Rapati from Van Lanschot Kempen. He is managing director of digital innovation. And also Thomas Vles, founder of GoDutch Banking. They are going to talk about agentic AI.
Rosalie Suurmeijer, Project Manager Events, Cognito
The exchange is in this one-minute clip, including my remark that nobody really knows where it is going.
The panel, titled Agentic Banking: Prepare to adapt or be ready to die, also has Michel Drupsteen, ING’s transformation lead for GenAI, and Jamie Burink, chief growth officer of Akkuro, the banking software company that hosts it. Akkuro draws the line between the two kinds of AI on its own page on agentic banking: “Assistants talk about banking. Agents execute banking inside real processes, with real data and under real controls.” Banks, the page says, need “controlled AI: what an agent may do, when it may do it, how it is monitored and how outcomes are explained afterward.”
In a speech in February, the ECB’s Pedro Machado said the supervisor’s annual data collection shows that more than 85 percent of large banks under European supervision “already use AI in some form”, and that the trend is accelerating, “particularly with the rapid emergence of generative and agentic AI.” Marco Li Mandri, ING’s head of advanced analytics strategy, told Computer Weekly in January that ING uses an agentic AI system in mortgage processing to help back-office staff with their checks, and that 90 percent of its AI pilots move to production, against an industry average he put at 30 percent.
Agents at the checkout
The two card networks that open the two days of AFE26 are both building payment rails for AI agents. On 8 April Visa unveiled Intelligent Commerce Connect, a single integration that handles payment initiation, tokenisation, spend controls and authentication for purchases made by AI agents. “As consumers increasingly rely on AI agents to make purchases,” Visa wrote, businesses need a simple way to get started. The product was in pilot with a first group of partners, with more to follow this year.
Mastercard’s platform is Agent Pay. In October 2025 Mastercard and PayPal agreed to build it into PayPal’s wallet, so that AI agents can complete transactions on behalf of PayPal users. In June, Worldline, ING and Mastercard ran a live agentic payment in production with Agent Pay: a merchant’s AI agent completed an ING cardholder’s purchase from a Dutch merchant, but only after the customer approved it.
Crypto has agent payments of its own. We reported in August that payments by AI agents over the x402 standard had grown to 165 million transactions, almost all of them in USDC, and in September that Elliptic had proposed eight risk checks for agentic crypto payments. Whether an agent pays with a card token or a stablecoin, the question for a bank or a regulator is the same: what was the agent allowed to spend, and who approved it?
What the AI Act asks of banks
For banks, the EU’s AI Act draws its sharpest line at credit. Annex III of the Act lists as high-risk any AI system “intended to be used to evaluate the creditworthiness of natural persons or establish their credit score”, with an exception for systems that detect financial fraud. AI used for risk assessment and pricing in life and health insurance is on the same list.
Those obligations were originally due in August 2026. The AI Omnibus, which entered into force on 27 July 2026, moved them: the rules for high-risk systems in Annex III now apply from 2 December 2027. That gives banks more time to prepare their credit models.
On 8 October at 13:15, the session “The EU AI Act: Driving Innovation through Trust?” takes that up with Nasir Farsad Layegh, who works on responsible AI and AI ethics at ABN AMRO, and Diana Raicu, senior legal counsel for digital finance at Triodos Bank. The organisers open the description with a direct question: “Can Europe compete in the global AI race, or does regulation come at the expense of innovation and competitiveness?”
Trust is the third part of this year’s theme, and I asked Rosalie what she means by it.
I think it’s really important to have the discussion when there’s a lot happening on the tech side about data and privacy.
Rosalie Suurmeijer, Project Manager Events, Cognito
Five questions for the AI sessions
The first day has more AI on the programme than one person can attend: Hexaware’s session on building differentiating features, Projective Group’s session on data and AI in the fight against financial crime, FinFlag’s session on AI and card scheme fees, S-PRO’s Beyond Copilot and the agentic banking panel. These are the questions I would take along, in the order the sessions run.
- At Hexaware’s session with Peaks, Qonto and Nopan, 7 October at 13:15: its description says building “is faster and cheaper than ever, but so is copying.” What still sets a Dutch fintech apart when every competitor can build the same feature?
- At the agentic banking panel, 15:45: which steps do you already let an agent complete on its own, and where does a person always sign off?
- To ING on the same panel: ING has said 90 percent of its AI pilots reach production. What does the bank decide before a pilot starts that makes that possible?
- At the EU AI Act session, 8 October at 13:15: with the credit-scoring rules now starting in December 2027, what should a bank build now so that it does not have to rebuild later?
- At Global Fintech Talent’s session on the talent market, also 13:15: which roles grow when agents take over routine work, and what should people in those jobs learn first?
If you still need a ticket, do not wait too long. When we spoke on 23 September, Rosalie said 75 percent were already sold. I also asked her what she hopes people take home from the two days.
I hope that they feel inspired and that they have the knowledge to take some new challenges on and to focus on that.
Rosalie Suurmeijer, Project Manager Events, Cognito
Her elevator pitch for the event, and the ticket update, are in this clip.
What is agentic AI in banking?
AI that carries out steps in a process, such as checks or payments, within limits the bank sets, instead of only answering questions or making suggestions. Akkuro, which hosts the AFE26 panel, describes it as the move from systems that support banking to systems that execute it.
When do the AI Act rules for credit scoring apply?
From 2 December 2027. AI that evaluates a person’s creditworthiness or sets a credit score is high-risk under Annex III of the AI Act, and the AI Omnibus, in force since 27 July 2026, moved the start of the Annex III rules to that date.
When are the AI sessions at AFE26?
On 7 October, the Hexaware, Projective Group and FinFlag sessions start at 13:15, Beyond Copilot at 14:55 and the agentic banking panel at 15:45. On 8 October, the EU AI Act session and the fintech talent session both start at 13:15. The full programme and tickets are on the Holland Fintech Association site.
Read next
The earlier pieces in this series: Is the euro stablecoin moment here? What to ask at AFE26, iDEAL becomes Wero. Where does a euro stablecoin fit in? and What bol’s payment licence says about embedded finance at AFE26.
All our AFE26 videos, including the full walk-through with Rosalie, are in this YouTube playlist. Cognito is at cognitomedia.com and the Holland Fintech Association at hollandfintechassociation.org.
I recorded the interview with Rosalie Suurmeijer at the World Trade Center Amsterdam on 23 September 2026. Quotes are verbatim, with filler removed. Cryptofocus is a media partner of Amsterdam Fintech Event 2026. Nothing here is financial advice.
