This is an opinion piece by the GPayments editorial team. It reports only what has already occurred in agentic payments, including announcements the card schemes and regulators have already made.
There is no shortage of predictions about agentic payments. We are going to leave them alone. For anyone responsible for payment authentication, a more useful exercise is to look at what is running today, what the card schemes have said they will do next, and what that asks of issuers and acquirers now. On those three points, the facts are clearer than the noise suggests.
Agentic payments have moved past the demo stage
Here is what has already happened. Mastercard announced its Agent Pay programme in April 2025. On 28 January 2026 it announced Australia’s first authenticated agentic transactions on its network, made with real cards at real merchants. New Zealand followed on 17 February, then Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea in March and Thailand in April.
In Europe, Visa announced on 2 July 2026 that AI agents were completing live purchases at independent merchant websites on behalf of cardholders, acting within parameters the consumer had set. Visa said it was working with more than 30 European issuers on these transactions.
Neither scheme has published transaction volumes, and we would be wary of anyone who claims to know them. Our view is that volume is the wrong thing to focus on at this stage anyway. What matters for authentication teams is the mechanics, because those are being set now.
How agentic payments are being authenticated today
The published material from both schemes describes a similar shape: register the agent, give it a credential tied to that agent, and authenticate the cardholder with a scheme passkey.
|
Element |
Mastercard Agent Pay |
Visa Intelligent Commerce |
|
Agent credential |
Agentic Tokens, built on Mastercard’s existing tokenisation |
Agent-bound tokens tied to specific authorised agents with consumer consent |
|
Agent identity |
Only registered agents can transact, governed and traceable through network tokens |
Trusted Agent Protocol, launched October 2025, lets merchants verify agents |
|
Cardholder authentication |
Biometric authentication; the programme builds on Mastercard Payment Passkeys |
Visa Payment Passkeys when an agent sets up a token, and to confirm high-value or unusual purchases |
|
Signals for issuers |
A probability score that a transaction was initiated by an AI agent, rolling out for testing in the US |
Distinct transaction identifiers for agent-initiated purchases so banks can apply adapted risk rules |
Visa has been explicit about strong customer authentication. It says every transaction in its European Agentic Ready programme was secured with Visa Payment Passkeys, in support of issuers’ compliance with European SCA requirements.
This is the point we think every team running EMV 3D Secure (EMV 3DS) should notice. In the live examples the schemes have described, the cardholder is authenticated by a scheme passkey at the moment authority is given to the agent, or when a purchase needs confirming. The published material does not describe an issuer’s 3DS challenge in that loop. We draw no conclusion about where that leads. It is simply how the live programmes work today, and it is worth understanding before anyone builds plans on assumptions.
Why issuers should care about the signals
Both schemes are investing in signals that tell issuers an agent is involved. Mastercard’s probability score and Visa’s distinct transaction identifiers exist for a practical reason. As Mastercard’s own example puts it, an agent booking a flight, a hotel and transport in one go can look unusual on the surface.
Our view is that this is where most issuers have real work to do, regardless of how agentic payments develop. Risk rules, whether in an ACS or in authorisation, were built around how people shop. Knowing how scheme agent signals will reach those rules is a sensible piece of preparation. It does not depend on anyone’s forecast being right. Our article on how issuers should use 3DS results when the authorisation arrives covers how authentication and authorisation decisions connect today.
What is scheduled to happen next
We are limiting this list to things that have been announced or are on the calendar:
- Mastercard’s agent probability score is rolling out for testing in the US. Mastercard says it will strengthen the score over time with intelligence on behaviour, merchant risk, transaction patterns and credential risk.
- Visa says its European model is being extended to commercial and business-to-business payment scenarios.
- HM Treasury asked in its July 2026 consultation whether UK rules on authentication, consent and liability for unauthorised payments need updating for agentic payments. The consultation closed on 6 October 2026, and the government has said it will set out further detail after the consultation.
- Peak trading arrives with Black Friday on 27 November 2026. For Australia, New Zealand, and the European markets in Visa’s programme, it is the first peak season since live agentic transactions began.
None of these tells us how big agentic payments will become, and we do not think anyone can say yet. They do tell us what will change on the ground over the coming weeks and months.
Our view: what teams should do now
- Work from published facts, not forecasts. Plan around what the schemes have actually launched and announced.
- Know where authentication happens in each programme you support. It is not always where your existing 3DS flow sits.
- Prepare your risk rules to use scheme agent signals, so legitimate agent activity is not declined simply for looking unfamiliar.
- Keep the fundamentals in order. Complete authentication data, clean handover from authentication to authorisation and well-tuned rules matter whoever, or whatever, is at the checkout.
- Follow your regulator. In the UK, watch for HM Treasury’s next steps on consent and liability.
Agentic payments may turn out to be large or modest. Either way, the teams that understand how the live programmes work will be in a better position than the teams that only read the predictions.
Where GPayments fits
ActiveAccess is GPayments’ Access Control Server for issuers, and ActiveServer is its 3DS Server for acquirers, payment service providers and merchants. If you want to talk through how agent-initiated activity may affect your authentication set-up, speak with a 3DS specialist.
Frequently asked questions
Are agentic payments live today?
Yes, in several markets. Mastercard has announced authenticated agentic transactions in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand during 2026, and Visa announced live agentic transactions in Europe on 2 July 2026.
How is the cardholder authenticated when an AI agent pays?
In the schemes’ published programmes, through scheme passkeys and biometrics, for example when an agent sets up a token or when a purchase needs confirming. Visa says its European transactions used Visa Payment Passkeys.
Do agentic payments use EMV 3DS?
The schemes’ published descriptions of their live programmes focus on network tokens and scheme passkeys and do not describe an issuer 3DS challenge in the flow. Check each scheme’s current rules for your market.
Is strong customer authentication still required when an agent pays?
Where SCA applies, the obligation stays with the payment service provider. Visa says its European agentic transactions used passkeys to support issuers’ SCA compliance.
Should issuers change their authentication rules for agentic payments now?
Not on assumptions. Prepare to use scheme agent signals in your risk rules, and wait for published scheme rules before changing production authentication behaviour.