Visa, Mastercard and Rain form Agentic Payments Alliance to standardize AI commerce

Aug 18, 2026

On August 18, 2026, stablecoin infrastructure provider Rain announced the formation of the Agentic Payments Alliance (APA). Founding members include Visa, Mastercard, Fiserv, Circle, Solana, and Fireblocks. The coalition aims to standardize protocols for agentic commerce—where autonomous AI agents execute transactions on behalf of humans—a market McKinsey projects could reach $3 trillion to $5 trillion globally by 2030. The APA will focus on establishing standards for AI agent authorization, developing new fraud prevention frameworks, and advocating on regulatory issues.

Agentic Payments Alliance formation

▪The Agentic Payments Alliance launched with over 25 founding members, including Visa, Mastercard, Fiserv, Circle, Solana, Remitly, and Fireblocks.
▪The enterprise stablecoin infrastructure provider Rain announced the formation of the Agentic Payments Alliance on August 18, 2026, to standardize protocols for AI-driven commerce.

AI agent payment infrastructure

▪McKinsey projects that the global market for agentic artificial intelligence commerce could reach between $3 trillion and $5 trillion by 2030.
▪The Agentic Payments Alliance aims to act as an EMV equivalent in the payments industry to ease communication between emerging AI programs and protocols.

Stablecoin transaction settlement

▪Stablecoins on programmable blockchains are positioned as a primary transaction medium for autonomous AI agents due to their ability to settle in seconds with embedded logic.
▪Rain provides technology that enables businesses to launch payment cards funded by users' stablecoin deposits, alongside its Agent Control Layer and Scoped Cards.

Fraud detection challenges

▪Traditional fraud detection models relying on human behavioral patterns, such as typing speed and location data, are ineffective for autonomous AI agents that do not exhibit these behaviors.
▪A study by AI fraud company Darwinium found that 48% of surveyed banks allow AI transactions by default using after-the-fact monitoring, while 31% proactively block them.

Authorization protocol development

▪The Agentic Payments Alliance will focus its early initiatives on shared research, testing, and establishing standards for AI agent identity and transaction authorization.
▪Fireblocks launched its Agentic Payments Suite on May 20, 2026, to allow payment service providers and fintechs to facilitate agent-initiated stablecoin transactions.

Regulatory advocacy efforts

▪Rain will provide Agentic Payments Alliance members with early access to its Agentic Startup Program, an accelerator designed for early-stage agentic commerce companies.
▪The Agentic Payments Alliance plans to develop group advocacy to address regulatory questions, such as liability and reporting requirements when AI agents initiate large financial transfers.