Visa and Mastercard have teamed up to develop payments using AI agents
Payment giants Visa and Mastercard have joined the new industry association, the Agentic Payments Alliance (APA), which will work on establishing uniform standards for commerce involving autonomous agents powered by artificial intelligence. The coalition already includes more than 25 companies from the payment and technology sectors
The APA was initiated by Rain, a platform for working with stablecoins. The alliance aims to bring together companies working to develop agent-based commerce—a model in which AI agents can perform specific transactions on behalf of users, including selecting products and making payments.
The potential scale of this market is estimated at trillions of dollars. According to a McKinsey forecast, by 2030, the volume of global agent-based commerce could range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion.
The APA will not be controlled by a single company. The coalition will be collectively managed by its founding members, and participants will jointly determine the organization’s charter, mission, and main areas of focus. Currently, the alliance already includes more than 25 companies.
The alliance will develop standards for AI agents
In the first phase, APA members plan to focus on joint research and establishing the alliance’s organizational structure.
Going forward, the companies will move on to testing new standards and technological approaches for identifying and authorizing AI agents during payment transactions. A separate area of focus will be addressing regulatory issues that arise as agent-based commerce evolves.
The Agency Payments Alliance is one of several initiatives aimed at establishing common rules for this new segment. Google and Mastercard also support the FIDO Alliance’s work on interoperable standards necessary for the development of agency commerce.
This was reported by American Banker.
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