The US agent payment infrastructure is more diverse: fintech companies can provide embedded accounts, card issuance, and payment capabilities through partnerships with regulated banks, while platforms like Plaid offer financial account connectivity and verification interfaces to applications, forming a multi-layered access structure of "application-API-bank-clearing network."

However, the statement "ACH can transfer funds instantly nationwide" is inaccurate. ACH is essentially a batch clearing network; Same Day ACH can complete some eligible transactions on the same day, at the fastest in a few hours, and is not available around the clock. The main channels for real-time payments in the US are FedNow and RTP, which support near real-time credit transfers; Nacha clearly views instant payments, Same Day ACH, and traditional ACH as different payment tracks coexisting.

The openness of the US also has its limits. The FDIC and other federal banking regulators have specifically pointed out that delivering products and services through third-party fintech companies can lead to compliance, consumer protection, operational, and risk management issues; if agents access account information, initiate payments, or make decisions on behalf of clients, they still need to navigate through the partnering bank, KYC, sanctions screening, fraud control, and liability allocation.

In China, consumer-facing mobile payments have long been dominated by Alipay, WeChat Pay, and the UnionPay network, with online payment institutions needing to process transactions through clearing arrangements like NetsUnion. Payment businesses themselves are constrained by licensing, capital, and operational requirements, and third-party service providers must work with licensed institutions, platform rules, and clearing systems to offer wallets, acquiring, or payment processing.

Therefore, the key difference between the two regions is not that "the US is completely open and China is completely closed," but rather that the authorization paths for programmable financial services differ. US agents can combine different modules through bank partnerships, data connections, card networks, ACH, RTP, and FedNow; Chinese agents, if they want to enter the funds movement layer, are more likely to rely on specific product interfaces opened by Alipay, WeChat Pay, banks, or licensed payment institutions, rather than assembling a complete set of financial capabilities independently.

Market opportunities are concentrated on cross-border compliance orchestration, rather than circumventing regulatory arbitrage. Cross-border agents can automatically complete identity and corporate data collection, payment path selection, fee and settlement time comparisons, sanctions and transaction monitoring, reconciliation, tax documentation, and anomaly escalation for businesses; funds must ultimately be settled within banks, payment institutions, card organizations, or compliant stablecoin channels. Beneficiaries will be platforms with licensed partnerships, risk control data, and corporate client distribution capabilities, while purely chat-based agents lacking local compliance and settlement capabilities will find it difficult to directly access core payment processes.

Source: Public Information