Mastercard has launched a new service that lets businesses use AI agents and software systems to make automated payments within set rules and limits.
Agent Pay for Machines by Mastercard is designed for transactions that happen programmatically in the background of digital commerce.
These include high-volume, low-value payments between AI agents, machines and software systems.
The service is designed to allow these payments to be permissioned, orchestrated and settled at machine speed across Mastercard’s global payments network.
In one example, an AI agent could set up an online store by buying a domain name, hosting service, images and checkout tools within a set budget.
These transactions differ from traditional card or point-of-sale payments because they are automated, continuous and executed between systems rather than initiated one by one by a person.
Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s Chief Product Officer, said,
“Agent Pay for Machines will create the conditions for a superbloom of AI business models.
Machine payments can make it possible for services to be bought and sold among agents at fundamentally different scales than payments today — very high volumes, very small values, very fast and at extremely low latency.”
Agent Pay for Machines builds on Mastercard’s Agent Pay programme, introduced in 2025 to support payments involving trusted AI agents.
The new service supports credentialing, permissioning, transaction controls and settlement across multiple payment types, including cards, accounts and stablecoins.
Businesses will be able to set spending limits and authorisation rules that are enforced programmatically.
Verified participants will also be able to transact across providers and systems, with settlement supported across multiple rails.
More than 30 companies are among the first participants and supporters of the service, including Adyen, Ant International, BVNK, Checkout.com, Cloudflare, Coinbase, Getnet by Santander, Global Payments, Lovable, OKX, Stripe and Tempo.
Mastercard is working with partners to test use cases, develop common rules and support adoption across industries.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by thanyakij-12 via Magnific
