Mastercard and Visa Enlist Banks for Agentic Payment Pilots to Transform Checkout Experiences

Mastercard and Visa, two of the world’s largest payment networks, are accelerating the development of agentic payment capabilities by partnering with leading banks and financial institutions to pilot next-generation payment experiences using AI-powered agents and automation tools. Agentic payments — where autonomous systems execute tasks such as checkout, payment routing, reconciliation and customer authorisation on behalf of users — represent a leap forward from traditional “press to pay” checkout flows toward more proactive, contextual and seamless payment journeys. The pilot programs aim to explore how AI agents interact with bank systems to optimise transactions, improve security, reduce friction and personalise payment options, laying the groundwork for widespread commercial deployments.

By enlisting banks in these early trials, Mastercard and Visa are testing how agentic technology can safely and securely interface with existing payment rails, identity systems and regulatory frameworks while empowering consumers and merchants with faster checkout, smarter payment routing and context-aware spending insights — a potential paradigm shift for digital commerce at scale.

Key Highlights

• Agentic payment pilots launched: Mastercard and Visa are launching pilot programs with partner banks to test AI-driven, context-aware payment agents across checkout and settlement.
• Banks participating: Multiple global and regional banks have signed up to integrate AI agent pilots into their payment systems and digital channels.
• Core use cases: Autonomous payment routing, digital wallet assistance, fraud detection, intelligent checkout optimisation and personalised payment suggestions.
• Goal: Improve checkout simplicity, reduce friction and extend “smart payments” beyond current wallet and token frameworks.
• Security & compliance focus: Pilots emphasise robust authentication, regulatory adherence and risk-aware agent governance.
• Future roadmap: Pending successful pilots, agentic capability standards and integration toolkits could be rolled out industry-wide.

What Are Agentic Payments?

Agentic payments refer to transactions initiated, managed or completed by AI-powered agents acting on behalf of users. Unlike static “push to pay” models where consumers manually select a payment method and confirm each step, agentic payments aim to:

• Understand context: Interpreting user intent based on preferences, behaviour and transaction history.
• Automate execution: Selecting optimal payment methods and authorising payments with minimal user intervention.
• Personalise experiences: Offering tailored payment recommendations or incentives based on real-time context.
• Reduce friction: Minimising clicks, screens and manual confirmations during checkout.

This represents a shift in expectations: payments become proactive and anticipatory rather than reactive and manual.

Pilot Goals and Use Cases

1. Intelligent Checkout Assistance

In pilot environments, AI agents can assist users with:

• One-click or zero-click checkout experiences
• Splitting payments across accounts or cards based on cost, rewards or balances
• Selecting optimal methods for merchant acceptance and issuer benefits

For example, an agent might detect that a user’s preferred card payment is about to reach a credit limit, and automatically reroute to a secondary payment method without disrupting checkout flow.

2. Smarter Fraud Detection and Security

AI-driven agents can constantly monitor patterns, detect anomalies and trigger automated workflows such as:

• Adaptive authentication based on risk scores
• Early fraud detection with real-time contextual insights
• Automated transaction hold and review logic

This improves security while reducing false positives compared with legacy rule-based systems.

3. Personalised Payment Routing

Agents can decide which payment paths are most efficient and cost-effective in real time, factoring in considerations such as:

• Merchant fees
• Loyalty rewards or cashback opportunities
• User spending patterns and preferences
• Optimal currency routing for cross-border transactions

By automating this decisioning, consumers and merchants benefit from better outcomes with minimal effort.

Bank Participation and Industry Collaboration

In both Mastercard and Visa pilots, a range of participating banks — from large global issuers to regional digital banks — are integrating AI agents into their digital payment ecosystems. These pilots generally involve:

• API integrations between bank systems and payment network sandbox environments
• Secure consent frameworks to allow agentic payment authorisation
• Testing in controlled live environments with selected user segments
• Regulatory engagement to ensure compliance with payment and data protection frameworks

Banks seek to understand not only the technology feasibility but also customer behaviour and risk dynamics associated with autonomous payments.

Why This Matters

1. Reducing Checkout Friction at Scale

Even today’s “one-tap” and “stored wallet” options require manual confirmation. Agentic payments aim to reduce friction further by making intelligent decisions without interrupting the user flow — a valuable competitive differentiator as digital commerce continues to expand across apps, IoT and voice interfaces.

2. Better Payment Outcomes for Consumers and Merchants

Smarter routing and adaptive payment logic can lower payment costs, reduce declines and improve settlement outcomes — with minimal effort from the end user. Agents can:

• Increase approval rates
• Optimise reward earnings
• Reduce settlement costs

This benefits both consumers and merchants through better payment experiences and lower friction.

3. Paving the Way for AI-Native Payments

Payments — historically a rules-driven process — are shifting toward AI-native systems that learn, adapt and improve over time. This may unlock:

• Predictive authorisation decisions
• Real-time compliance and anti-fraud logic
• Dynamic loyalty and incentive application at checkout
• Context-aware payment suggestions across devices

The Mastercard and Visa pilots position banks to gain early experience in this emerging domain.

Risks and Regulatory Considerations

Agentic payments introduce regulatory and compliance complexities, including:

• Consumer protection requirements: Ensuring users maintain control and consent for agent-driven actions.
• Hardware and software security: Protecting agent decision systems from manipulation or spoofing.
• Auditability: Making agent decisions transparent and explainable for compliance and dispute resolution.
• Data privacy: Safeguarding sensitive financial and behavioural data used by agents.

Both Mastercard and Visa are working with regulators and partners to ensure safe and responsible deployment frameworks that address these concerns.

#AgenticPayments#AIinPaymentsBankingInnovationDigitalPaymentsfintechMastercardTheFinRateVisa