Visa, Mastercard and Ant International Build Common Standards for AI Agent Payments

Ant International has partnered with Visa and Mastercard to develop common standards for identifying and verifying artificial intelligence agents that make purchases on behalf of consumers and businesses.

The companies will create an interoperable “Know Your Agent” framework that allows card networks, digital wallets, marketplaces, and payment providers to recognize trusted AI agents across separate ecosystems.

The initiative comes as autonomous software evolves from recommending products to searching, ordering, and paying for them. The partners cited McKinsey estimates suggesting AI agents could handle between $3 trillion and $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.

However, giving AI systems greater control over financial transactions creates new security challenges, including hallucinations, unauthorized purchases, and uncertainty over who instructed an agent.

“Trust is the foundation of the AI transformation,” Ant International Chief Innovation Officer Jiang-Ming Yang told CNBC.

Know Your Agent Framework Targets Payment Risks

The framework will establish common methods for linking an AI agent to a verified entity, assessing its behavior, and monitoring its payment activity.

Interoperability represents a central goal. An agent that registers through Ant International should not need to complete the same process separately with Visa or Mastercard.

“If [an] agent registers with Ant, they don’t need to register again with Visa, Mastercard,” Yang said.

The framework would help merchants determine which software initiated a transaction, who it represents, and whether the customer authorized the purchase. Participants could still maintain their own approval procedures and risk-management controls.

“Interoperability across Know-Your-Agent frameworks is essential to making agentic commerce work at scale,” Mastercard Chief Digital Officer Pablo Fourez said.

The three companies will collaborate through BuildFin.ai, an initiative convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The platform brings financial institutions, technology companies, and researchers together to develop AI applications for financial services.

Visa and Mastercard Expand Agentic Payment Systems

The initiative builds on payment protocols that each company has developed independently, including Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent, and Ant International’s Agentic Mobile Protocol.

Visa launched Intelligent Commerce Connect in April, combining payment initiation, tokenization, authentication, and spending controls for AI agents. The infrastructure lets agents search for products and initiate transactions while using Visa’s existing security systems.

Mastercard has pursued a similar strategy through Agent Pay and Agent Connect. These systems record customer authority through tokenized permissions and give merchants tools for product discovery, cart creation, and customer-approved payments across AI shopping platforms.

The card company also launched Agent Pay for Machines with support from more than 30 payment, blockchain, and technology businesses, including Ripple, Coinbase, Stripe, Adyen, and the Solana Foundation.

The network can process autonomous transactions through conventional payment rails or stablecoins while allowing users to set spending limits, approval requirements, and settlement conditions.

Alipay Brings Automated Purchasing to Consumers

Ant International adds more than 50 partner digital wallets to the collaboration through Alipay+, its cross-border payment platform.

Digital wallets accounted for 56% of global e-commerce transaction value and 33% of point-of-sale spending in 2025, according to Worldpay. Consumers spent more than $13 trillion through the payment method during the year.

Alipay, which Ant Group operates in mainland China, has already introduced AI-assisted ordering features. Users can schedule recurring Starbucks purchases by asking the app to order an iced Americano at a specific time each day.

The AI tool prepares the order, but the customer must still approve the payment. Users can also schedule recurring ride-hailing requests through Didi.

These early applications preserve human authorization while automating other steps. As agents assume more responsibility, the new standards aim to give merchants and payment providers a consistent way to verify the software, and the people or organizations behind it.