Ant International, Visa and Mastercard announced on Sept. 9 that they will collaborate on an interoperable Know-Your-Agent, or KYA, framework for AI agents in payments, according to CNBC.
The goal is to allow an AI agent to verify its identity once and then use that verification across different card schemes and digital wallet networks. In practical terms, an AI agent registered with Ant International would not need to register again separately with Visa and Mastercard.
The announcement cited a McKinsey estimate that AI agents could handle $3 trillion to $5 trillion in global consumer spending by 2030.
Existing protocols will be aligned, not merged
Each of the three companies already has its own framework in place: Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard’s Verifiable Intent and Ant International’s Agentic Mobile Protocol.
This collaboration is meant to align those three protocols around a common set of principles. The announcement said each network will still keep its own verification and decision-making process rather than combine everything into one system.
Three areas are at the center of the effort
The joint statement outlined three main parts of the work:
- Cross-network operator traceability: every agent must be linked to a verified operator, cardholder or business organization so its actions can be clearly attributed.
- Shared certification requirements: every agent must pass security and behavioral assessments to confirm that it operates as expected.
- Ongoing transaction monitoring: identity signals and transaction signals will be combined for continuous assessment and re-certification of agents.
The companies said the framework is intended to reduce integration complexity and repeated verification, speed up the launch of new agent services, lower integration costs and preserve cross-network visibility into risk.
BuildFin.ai will serve as the implementation platform
The three companies said they will move the initiative forward through BuildFin.ai, an industry platform convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The platform brings together financial institutions, technology providers and researchers to develop scalable responsible AI solutions.
The work will build on the existing SAFR framework, short for Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime. Its initial scope will focus on Singapore’s payments ecosystem.
All three pointed to the same issue: trust
Rubail Birwadker, head of growth products and strategic partnerships at Visa, said that as AI agents take on a larger role in how people discover and buy products, trust needs to scale as well. He said this kind of collaboration can help create more consistent rules and accountability across the payments ecosystem.
Pablo Fourez, chief digital officer at Mastercard, said interoperability between KYA frameworks is a necessary condition for scaling agentic commerce. Merchants, platforms, wallets and issuers need a consistent way to identify trusted agents, confirm that an agent’s actions reflect user intent and maintain accountability during transactions, he said.
Ant International said KYA interoperability between card networks and wallet networks is key to building trust in agentic commerce for payment partners, platforms and merchants.