Visa, Mastercard, Ant Push Common Standards for AI Agents Making Payments
The companies are working through Singapore’s BuildFin.ai platform on interoperable identity, verification and monitoring standards for AI agents.
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Ant International, Mastercard and Visa said on Thursday, September 10, they are developing a common framework to identify and verify AI agents making purchases on behalf of users.
The Know-Your-Agent interoperability framework is intended to let card networks, digital wallets, AI-agent platforms and marketplaces recognize trusted agents across different payment systems without giving up their own verification and risk controls.
The effort builds on systems the companies have developed separately, including Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent and Ant International’s Agentic Mobile Protocol. The companies said they will explore common principles across those systems.
The framework would focus on three areas: linking each AI agent to a verified operator, cardholder or organization; applying common security and behavioral requirements; and continuously monitoring agents using identity and transaction data.
The aim is to reduce repeated identity checks and integration work when an AI agent moves across payment networks, while making it clearer who authorized a transaction and who is accountable for it.
Jiang-Ming Yang, chief innovation officer at Ant International, told CNBC that interoperability could prevent agents from having to register separately with every payment network.
“If an agent registers with Ant, they don’t need to register again with Visa, Mastercard,” Yang said.
The initiative comes as AI systems move beyond searching for products and making recommendations toward completing purchases within limits set by users.
“Trust is the foundation of the AI transformation,” Yang told CNBC, pointing to the risk of AI systems producing incorrect or unpredictable outputs.
McKinsey estimates AI agents could mediate $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.
Ant International, Mastercard and Visa will work through BuildFin.ai, an industry platform convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The effort will build on Singapore’s Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime framework and examine common approaches to agent verification, accountability and risk management across payment systems.
The companies said interoperable identity checks could lower integration costs and make it easier to launch AI-driven payment services across card and wallet networks.
