Visa, Mastercard, and Ant International Partner on 'Know-Your-Agent' Identity Framework for AI Commerce

Global financial technology and payment leaders Visa, Mastercard, and Ant International have formed a joint initiative to establish a shared "Know-Your-Agent" (KYA) framework for autonomous artificial intelligence agents conducting transactions on behalf of consumers. The partnership, announced Thursday in Singapore and reported by outlets including The Next Web, Reuters, and CNBC, aims to create cross-network identification protocols as AI-driven commercial activity accelerates.

The unified framework is designed to assist digital wallet providers, payment card networks, merchant marketplaces, and autonomous software platforms in identifying and onboarding AI transaction agents across different systems. Under the proposed structure, individual payment networks will retain independent control over their own verification rules and underlying transaction decision processes.

The three payment giants outlined three core pillars for the collaborative project: cross-network operator traceability, shared security certification, and continuous transaction monitoring. Traceability will directly connect each autonomous agent to an authenticated business, cardholder, or software operator. The shared certification mechanism will evaluate AI agents against uniform technical and behavioral security criteria, while ongoing monitoring will rely on real-time identity and transactional signals to detect irregularities.

Prior to this agreement, each organization maintained a proprietary system for managing autonomous payment transactions. Visa developed its Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard established Mastercard Verifiable Intent, and Ant International created its Agentic Mobile Protocol. The trio plans to align these distinct technologies around universal operational principles.

The collaborative initiative will operate through BuildFin.ai, an innovation platform organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The work builds upon the Singaporean central bank’s regulatory initiative known as Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime (SAFR), targeting payment ecosystems active within the region. The participating companies highlighted market projections from consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which estimates that AI agents could direct between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in global retail purchases by 2030.

Executives emphasized that standardized identity verification is necessary to establish consumer confidence as automated shopping software expands. Mastercard Chief Digital Officer Pablo Fourez stated that "interoperability across Know-Your-Agent frameworks is essential to making agentic commerce work at scale." Rubail Birwadker, global head of growth products and strategic partnerships at Visa, noted that "as AI agents become a bigger part of how people discover and buy, trust must scale with them."

Speaking to CNBC, Ant International Chief Innovation Officer Jiang-Ming Yang explained how a cross-network system simplifies registration for software developers, noting that if an agent completes registration with Ant, it would not require redundant onboarding with Visa or Mastercard. Addressing the risks associated with AI software errors, Yang added that due to the potential for agent hallucinations, "we need to make sure people feel safe."

Ant International, which spun off from Hangzhou-headquartered Ant Group nearly three years ago, operates the Alipay+ network, connecting over 150 million merchant locations to more than 50 mobile wallets and banking applications. Ant International secured $1.2 billion in funding earlier this year to support global expansion efforts, as reported by The Next Web. Data from payment processor Worldpay projected that digital wallets would represent 56 percent of worldwide e-commerce transaction value and 33 percent of point-of-sale volume in 2025.

The cross-industry initiative comes amid rapid commercial rollouts of AI agents by major technology firms and venture-backed startups. Meta launched its Muse personal assistant agent earlier this week, Amazon integrated Alexa functionality directly into its primary search bar, and major Chinese technology conglomerates are deploying automated shopping software. Meanwhile, early-stage investment in the sector continues to grow, marked by Paris-based agentic commerce platform Lemrock raising €6 million in seed funding in March.