Archive · 14 Sep 2026
Visa, Mastercard and Ant Develop Shared AI Agent Payment Framework
AI agents are software programs that can shop and pay for people.
Payment companies need to know whether an agent is real and allowed to spend money.
Ant International, Mastercard and Visa are working on a shared way to check these agents.
They call this idea Know-Your-Agent, or KYA.
Each company already has its own system for checking agents.
The new framework would help those systems understand one another.
The framework is still being developed, so shoppers will not see an immediate checkout change.
Important questions about refunds, mistakes, responsibility and access for smaller companies remain unanswered.
Ant International, Mastercard and Visa are collaborating on a Know-Your-Agent interoperability framework.
The framework would help payment networks, wallets, platforms and marketplaces identify and onboard AI agents.
It addresses questions about whether agents are legitimate, authorised to spend and accountable for purchases.
The initiative aims to align three existing systems without creating one unified technical standard.
No deployment timetable, pilot volumes or participating merchants and financial institutions have been announced.
- Who
- Ant International, Mastercard and Visa.
- What
- The companies have begun collaborating on a Know-Your-Agent interoperability framework for identifying and onboarding AI shopping agents.
- When
- The article does not specify when the collaboration was announced.
- Where
- The article does not specify a location.
- Why
- To help payment networks and commerce platforms determine whether AI agents are legitimate, authorised to spend and accountable for transactions.
- Framework
- Know-Your-Agent, or KYA, interoperability framework
- Participants
- Ant International, Mastercard and Visa
- Existing protocols
- Visa Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent and Ant International Agentic Mobile Protocol
- Expected market scale
- AI agents are forecast to orchestrate $3 trillion to $5 trillion in global consumer commerce by 2030
- Current status
- Framework under development, not a deployed technical standard
- Implementation details
- No timetable, pilot volumes or participating merchants and financial institutions were announced
- Open issues
- Liability, refunds, disputes, smaller developers' access and regulatory oversight