Amira Karim

Head of International Public Policy, Payments & Financial Services

Amazon

Amira Karim is a global public policy and payments leader at Amazon, where she works at the intersection of emerging technologies, AI, agentic commerce, and next-generation financial infrastructure. Her work focuses on the evolving policy architecture required for trusted digital commerce, including cross-border payments, digital identity, stablecoins, and programmable money, with an emphasis on governance, interoperability, and trust in the digital economy.

Prior to Amazon, Amira held roles across government, international development, and the private sector, including at Stripe, where she worked on global market expansion and international development initiatives focused on digital payments, financial inclusion, and the growth of digital economies across emerging markets. She has also worked alongside institutions including the World Bank. Based in Seattle and originally from Singapore, she engages closely with governments, regulators, multilateral institutions, and industry leaders globally on the future of trusted AI-enabled commerce and digital economic systems.

Speaking at

12:00–1:30pmTue 23 JunGFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
Roadmap for AI and Quantum

Agentic Commerce: Who Governs the Machine that Pays?

GFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
About this session

AI agents are already initiating real financial transactions - booking, subscribing, settling, and disbursing without a human approving each step. The commerce and payments infrastructure built around human decision-makers was not designed for a counterparty that never sleeps, cannot be held to a contract in the traditional sense, and can be compromised at the model layer rather than the credential layer.

This session convenes payments architects, legal practitioners, and AI deployment leads to work through the practical questions the industry is looking to answer: how do you authenticate an agent, assign liability for an autonomous transaction gone wrong, and design governance frameworks for a technology that is already in production.

Participants will examine the specific mechanics of agentic payment flows - wallet delegation architectures, spending limit enforcement, multi-agent authorisation chains, and the emerging standards around agent identity that are still being written in real time by consortia that have not yet reached consensus.

The session will also surface the fraud and risk management implications: how transaction monitoring systems designed to flag anomalous human behaviour respond to the high-frequency, pattern-consistent activity of a well-functioning agent - and what entirely new risk frameworks may be required when the buyer is a model, the merchant is an API, and the dispute resolution process was designed for neither.
1:00–2:00pmWed 24 JunLaunchpadLaunchpad Room, Level 1Open
Others

The Future of Cross-Border Commerce in the Age of AI and Stablecoins - Are We Building Payments Infrastructure That Works for Merchants, Consumers, and Machines? - Powered by Amazon

LaunchpadLaunchpad Room, Level 1Open
About this session

Cross-border payments for merchants remain expensive, slow, and fragmented — and for SME sellers in emerging markets, often inaccessible entirely. This session tests whether tokenised money (stablecoins, tokenised deposits, CBDCs) is genuinely reducing cost, time, and friction for merchants in live corridors today, or whether the promise still outpaces reality. It then introduces agentic commerce — AI agents executing transactions autonomously on behalf of businesses — as the stress test that reveals whether the infrastructure, regulation, and trust frameworks being built are fit for what comes next. Participants will leave with a grounded picture of where tokenised money works for merchants today, where the gaps remain (particularly for SME sellers in emerging markets), and the specific policy and infrastructure conditions that would unlock the next stage of cross-border commerce.
12:00–1:30pmThu 25 JunGFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
Blueprint for Digital Assets

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Working Group Members Convening

GFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
About this session

The problems that constrain tokenization at scale do not belong to one working group, one institution, or one regulatory perimeter. Cross-ledger settlement, stablecoin licensing fragmentation, FMI readiness in developing markets, and the legal enforceability of smart contracts are structurally connected with each a precondition for the next, each requiring actors across infrastructure and regulation to work from the same evidence base.
This session brings both working groups together for the first time in person. Working Group 1 (Interoperability and Infrastructure) and Working Group 2 (Regulation, Trust, and Governance) will each present their problem statements before presenting to the Oversight Panel. The purpose is to establish shared understanding of the initiative's full scope, test framing with peers who approach the same challenges from different vantage points, and sharpen the asks that each working group will direct to the Oversight Panel in the session that follows.
About the initiative
GFTN has launched _Tokenization in Finance: Evidence and Implementation Pathways_, a structured, multi-stakeholder initiative convening two working groups drawn from leading financial institutions, infrastructure providers, and market participants to assemble a practitioner-oriented evidence base spanning spanning digital money and payment rails through to tokenized real-world assets, securities, funds, and capital markets infrastructure. At Singapore FinTech Festival in November 2026, the initiative will publish a practitioner guide designed to give financial institutions a structured basis for sequencing their digital asset strategies, and to equip regulators and finance ministries in emerging and developing economies with implementation pathways they can draw on directly.
2:00–3:30pmThu 25 JunGFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
Blueprint for Digital Assets

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Oversight Panel Convening

GFTN InsightsRoundtable Room 2, Ground FloorOpen
About this session

Tokenization is reshaping financial infrastructure across many economies. The decisions that are being made now on architecture, standards and governance will determine whether that infrastructure serves developed and emerging and developing economies, or leaves some behind. Ensuring that outcome requires senior public sector voices at the centre of these conversations.
This session brings both working groups and the public sector Oversight Panel together for the first time. Working group leads will present their confirmed problem statements on what the evidence shows, and receive feedback and recommendations that working groups will pursue to build the practitioner's guide that will publish at Singapore FinTech Festival in November 2026.
About the initiative
GFTN is launching _Tokenization in Finance: Evidence and Implementation Pathways_, a structured, multi-stakeholder initiative convening two working groups drawn from leading financial institutions, infrastructure providers, and market participants to assemble a practitioner-oriented evidence base spanning spanning digital money and payment rails through to tokenized real-world assets, securities, funds, and capital markets infrastructure. At Singapore FinTech Festival in November 2026, the initiative will publish a practitioner guide designed to give financial institutions a structured basis for sequencing their digital asset strategies, and to equip regulators and finance ministries in emerging and developing economies with implementation pathways they can draw on directly.

Featured speakers

Hosted by

Amira Karim

Speaking at

Agentic Commerce: Who Governs the Machine that Pays?

The Future of Cross-Border Commerce in the Age of AI and Stablecoins - Are We Building Payments Infrastructure That Works for Merchants, Consumers, and Machines? - Powered by Amazon

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Working Group Members Convening

Building a Practitioner's Guide for Tokenization in Finance: Oversight Panel Convening