Visa has launched a new global programme aimed at preparing the payments ecosystem for the rise of AI-driven commerce, as the industry seeks to incorporate agentic AI, bringing us one stop closer – for better or worse – to a future where shopping and paying for things moves from from manual transactions towards more automated and intent-based payments.

The initiative, called Visa Agentic Ready, is designed to equip issuers for a future in which AI agents can initiate and complete secure transactions on behalf of consumers. Launching first in Europe, including the UK, the programme has emerged as the central thrust of Visa Intelligent Commerce, the company’s strategic framework for scaling AI within the sector.

In its initial phase, the focus is on issuer readiness. Visa is providing partners with a ‘structured environment in which to test and validate transactions initiated by AI agents’.

While all tightly controlled at this stage, issuing banks are able to explore how these automated payment flows function within controlled production environments, iterating the role of AI agents in the consumer journey.

Participating organisations include major financial institutions such as Santander, HSBC UK, Revolut and Nationwide Building Society, alongside a broader group of European banks including Alpha Bank, Barclays, Commerzbank and Raiffeisen Bank International. Additional partners are expected to join as the programme expands.

Through the programme, issuing partners will gain direct experience of how agentic commerce platforms can securely initiate and complete transactions, while – according to Visa – preserving the trust, control and protections associated with the Visa network.

“As AI agents increasingly shape how people shop and buy, payments need to keep up,” said Mathieu Altwegg, Head of Product & Solutions, Visa Europe. “Visa Agentic Ready will initially help European issuers prepare for secure, scalable agent-initiated payments, built on infrastructure people already trust.”

Although global in scope, the programme is launching in Europe as part of a phased rollout. The region is seen as a favourable testing ground due to its high adoption of technologies such as tokenisation, passkeys and advanced authentication, which are already embedded across Visa’s network.

Visa Agentic Ready is underpinned by what the company describes as its “trust layer”, combining tokens, identity verification, risk management and control mechanisms to assess how agent-initiated payments can be securely enabled across different channels and use cases.

The programme also examines how existing safeguards can be extended into AI-driven environments, including the use of tokenisation and biometric authentication to ensure that transactions remain clearly linked to a verified individual, with user consent maintained at key stages.

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Testing is being conducted in controlled, production-grade environments with selected merchants, allowing participants to validate how agent-initiated payments perform in real-world conditions. Visa said this approach is intended to build confidence as agentic commerce moves from concept to practical deployment.

Finance Sector Moving From Ideation to Agentic Rollout

Visa’s announcement follows news earlier in the month that Santander and Mastercard have carried out what they claim is Europe’s first end‑to‑end payment executed by an AI agent in a regulated banking environment.

The transaction was processed in a controlled environment using Mastercard’s Agent Pay system, before being routed through the bank’s live payments infrastructure to validate the operational and control framework under real-world conditions.

Santander said that the new framework allows AI agents to initiate and execute payments on customers’ behalf within predefined limits and permissions. In practical terms, the bank said the system could allow an AI agent to safely complete transactions over existing payment networks, meeting rigorous security, privacy, and consumer‑protection requirements.