Visa and Mastercard back new Agentic Payments Alliance

Visa, Mastercard, and other major payment players have formed the Agentic Payments Alliance (APA) to set the standards for how AI bots handle money. Think of this as the groundwork for 'AI Commerce.' In the near future, your customers might not be the ones clicking 'buy' or selecting a financing plan. Instead, their AI agents will do it for them. This alliance aims to ensure these automated transactions are secure, verifiable, and compatible across different platforms. For retailers, this signals a shift in how you will need to offer consumer financing. If an AI agent is shopping for a customer, your checkout process—including BNPL and traditional credit offers—must be readable and executable by a machine, not just a human. The APA is working to create the 'rules of the road' so that when a bot applies for credit on behalf of a user, the identity verification and payment protocols are seamless. Early adoption of these standards could mean your store becomes the preferred destination for automated shoppers. It also suggests that the next generation of POS financing will be deeply integrated with AI assistants that manage a consumer's budget and credit health in real-time.

Source: Finextra — Lending

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