# Ant International, Mastercard and Visa Initiate Collaboration on Know-Your-Agent Interoperability to Scale Agentic Commerce

- Link: https://www.thailand-business-news.com/pr-news/ant-international-mastercard-and-visa-initiate-collaboration-on-know-your-agent-interoperability-to-scale-agentic-commerce
- Published: 2026-09-10T08:00:00+07:00
- Author: PR Newswire

SHANGHAI and SINGAPORE, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ant International, Mastercard,
and Visa have begun collaboration on a Know-Your-Agent (KYA) interoperability framework,
designed to help card networks, digital wallet ecosystems, agent platforms and marketplaces
streamline agent onboarding and identification across networks, based on shared 
principles while preserving each network’s own verification and decisioning processes.

[⌊Ant International, Mastercard and Visa initiate collaboration on Know-Your-Agent
interoperability to scale agentic commerce⌉⌊Ant International, Mastercard and Visa
initiate collaboration on Know-Your-Agent interoperability to scale agentic commerce⌉[
Ant International,
Mastercard and Visa initiate collaboration on Know-Your-Agent interoperability to
scale agentic commerce

AI agents are evolving from making recommendations to completing purchases on behalf
of users. By 2030, AI agents are projected to orchestrate US$3 trillion to 5 trillion
of global consumer commerce^([i]). Underlying the mega-trend is the KYA architecture
of payment networks and service providers, which establishes requirements and accountability,
verifies agent identities, and ensures secure, trusted transaction execution.

The three organizations have previously rolled out their respective protocols — 
Visa’s **Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent**, and** Ant International’s
Agentic Mobile Protocol **— and will now explore opportunities to work towards common
principles.

**Recognized agent trust signals and streamlined agent onboarding across cards and
wallets**

The interoperable KYA framework could simplify and facilitate agentic payment transactions
for service providers, agent platforms and marketplaces while upholding robust trust
guardrails.

With this initiative, agents can benefit from KYA and identity frameworks that enable
common trust signals to be recognized across the payment ecosystem. This helps reduce
integration complexity and duplicative agent identity verification efforts while
maintaining robust trust and risk controls.

This will enable faster time-to-market and lower integration cost for new agentic
services with greater trust and risk visibility across participating networks.

The KYA collaboration centers on:

**Cross-network Operator Traceability**: Each agent is linked to a validated operator,
cardholder, or business / organization, enabling clear attribution of agent activity.

**Shared Certification Requirements**: Each agent is assessed against security and
behavioral requirements to ensure it operates as expected.

**Continuous Transaction Monitoring**: Each agent is continuously monitored and 
evaluated using a combination of identity and transaction-related signals to support
ongoing assessments and certification.

The payments industry is accelerating collaboration to strengthen trust, common 
principles and governance in the agentic commerce ecosystem, with agent identity
and trust as a key area of focus.

Building on the Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime (SAFR) framework^([ii]),
Ant International, Mastercard and Visa will collaborate through BuildFin.ai to advance
common approaches for AI agent verification, accountability and risk management 
across payment ecosystems in Singapore. BuildFin.ai is an industry platform convened
by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to bring together financial institutions,
technology providers and researchers to develop and scale responsible AI solutions
for financial services.

The effort aims to support secure and scalable agentic commerce, enabling AI agents
to operate safely and reliably across payment ecosystems while maintaining strong
safeguards for consumers, merchants and financial institutions.

"As AI agents become a bigger part of how people discover and buy, trust must scale
with them," said **Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth Products and Strategic
Partnerships, Visa**. "Visa has played a leading role in creating the trust frameworks
that make agentic commerce possible through the development of innovations such 
as Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol. Collaborations like this can help create more 
consistency, better accountability, and greater confidence across the payments ecosystem
as AI-driven transactions become more common."

"Interoperability across Know-Your-Agent frameworks is essential to making agentic
commerce work at scale, giving merchants, platforms, wallets and issuers a consistent
way to recognise trusted agents, verify that actions reflect the user’s intent, 
and preserve accountability across the transaction," said **Pablo Fourez, Chief 
Digital Officer, Mastercard**. "Mastercard Verifiable Intent was designed for this
open ecosystem, helping ensure that as commerce becomes more autonomous, every interaction
remains secure, transparent and grounded in consent."

"Interoperable KYA between card and wallet networks is critical for securing trust
for our payment partners, platforms and merchants in agentic commerce," said **Jiang-
Ming Yang, Chief Innovation Officer of Ant International**. "We look forward to 
expanding collaboration as the industry draws on richer signals — capabilities, 
behavior, execution performance, and risk data — to enhance trust and simplify transactions
for our clients and their customers." 

**About Ant International**

Ant International is a leading global digital payment, digitisation and finAI solutions
provider. Through collaboration across the private and public sectors, our unified
techfin platform supports financial institutions and merchants of all sizes to achieve
inclusive growth through a comprehensive range of cutting-edge digital payment and
financial services solutions. To learn more, please visit [https://www.ant-intl.com/](https://www.ant-intl.com/).

Ant International’s Alipay+ is a unified wallet gateway now connecting 150 million
merchants to over 50 global digital wallets and banking apps, reaching 2 billion
user accounts. The merchant network includes those connected through over 10 national
QR schemes across Asia and Middle East. 

**About Mastercard**

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories
worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re building a resilient economy where
everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making
transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation,
partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services
that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

[www.mastercard.com](https://www.mastercard.com/)

**About Visa**

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions 
between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across
more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through
the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling 
individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that 
include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational
to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

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^([i]) [https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-automation-curve-in-agentic-commerce](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-automation-curve-in-agentic-commerce)

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^([ii]) For more information on SAFR see: [https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/media-releases/2026/mas-partners-industry-to-develop-safeguards-for-ai-agents-in-finance](https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/media-releases/2026/mas-partners-industry-to-develop-safeguards-for-ai-agents-in-finance)

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  |  This article was produced by Cision PR Newswire, our trusted news partner. The views expressed and the content presented here are solely those of the author and may not fully reflect the opinions of Thailand Business News. |

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