Visa, Mastercard Join Ant International on AI Agent Payment Standard
The collaboration aims to establish interoperable security protocols as McKinsey forecasts AI agents will handle up to $5 trillion in commerce by 2030.
Ant International has enlisted Visa and Mastercard to develop unified standards for payments processed by AI agents, addressing security and trust concerns as autonomous software begins handling financial transactions at scale.
The fintech company announced the collaboration Thursday, citing McKinsey projections that AI agents could manage between $3 trillion and $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030. The initiative centers on creating "know your agent" protocols that would allow payment systems to verify AI agents' identities, assess their behavior patterns, and monitor transactions across platforms.
Why it matters
As businesses deploy AI agents to automate purchasing decisions and consumers experiment with delegating routine transactions to software, the payments infrastructure must evolve to prevent fraud and hallucination-driven errors. Without common standards, each AI agent would need separate credentials for every payment network—creating friction that could stall adoption. A unified framework could accelerate the shift toward autonomous commerce while maintaining the security expectations consumers have for traditional payment methods.
Building cross-platform trust
Jiang-Ming Yang, chief innovation officer at Ant International, told CNBC that AI agents' tendency toward hallucination necessitates robust safeguards. "Trust is the foundation of the AI transformation," Yang said in an interview first reported by CNBC.
The new framework aims to eliminate redundant registration requirements. "If [an] agent registers with Ant, they don't need to register again with Visa, Mastercard," Yang explained. Each of the three companies had previously announced separate protocols for secure AI agent payments over the past year.
Pablo Fourez, chief digital officer at Mastercard, emphasized that "interoperability across Know-Your-Agent frameworks is essential to making agentic commerce work at scale." The collaboration seeks to establish consistent methods for merchants and payment processors to identify trustworthy AI agents.
Digital wallet dominance
The partnership reflects shifting payment preferences globally. While Visa and Mastercard dominate credit card transactions in developed markets, digital wallets have gained ground in developing economies. Ant International's Alipay Plus app partners with more than 50 e-wallets worldwide.
Digital wallets represented 56% of global e-commerce transaction value and 33% of point-of-sale value in 2025, totaling over $13 trillion in spending, according to payment processor Worldpay. These platforms increasingly integrate credit card functionality and are becoming primary payment interfaces.
Early implementations
Alipay, operated by Ant Group in mainland China, demonstrated practical applications Wednesday by enabling users to set recurring AI-driven orders. Users can instruct the app to "buy me a Starbucks iced Americano at 10 a.m. every day," which places orders automatically before prompting payment confirmation. The feature also supports recurring ride-hailing requests through Didi.
Ant International separated from Hangzhou-based Ant Group nearly three years ago and focuses on international markets while Ant Group operates Alipay domestically in China.
Details of the collaboration were first reported by CNBC.
This is an original analysis by the Omega editorial team. Source reporting: AI Watch.
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