Artificial intelligence agents are poised to shoulder a larger role in retail, prompting the payments industry to prepare for their growing use in commerce.
In Europe, that effort has led to the creation of a new industry body, the Local Payments Council for Agentic Commerce. Its founding members span a range of industry players, including fintechs like the UK’s PPRO, Poland’s BLIK, and Belgium’s Bancontact. The group also includes the European Payments Initiative, which developed the EU-wide digital wallet Wero, and Greece’s national payment clearing house, DIAS.
The council aims to establish standards for how AI agents are authorized by users and verified by banks. It also plans to address how agents identify merchants and how disputes and refunds are handled in agentic commerce.
These concerns have surfaced in industry discussions worldwide. The European council has an additional focus, however. And that’s ensuring that domestic European payment methods are integrated into agentic commerce platforms from the onset.
Aligning Forces Worldwide
The council’s formation reflects a broader global effort to establish guardrails for agentic commerce.
A consortium of banks, including Bank of America, Capital One, NatWest, and ING, was formed to develop safeguards for agentic commerce. A key concern is that AI agents operating in e-commerce could create new opportunities for scams, fraud, and privacy breaches.
Another initiative, involving Visa, Mastercard, and Ant International, has focused on developing Know Your Agent standards to verify and monitor AI agents. The group has also sought to improve interoperability across the growing number of agentic commerce systems.
Keeping Domestic Payment Methods Competitive
These initiatives reflect growing industry preparations for agentic commerce, alongside concerns about its potential risks. Reports that major U.S. banks have already detected unauthorized third-party AI agents operating within customer accounts underscore the challenges ahead.
Even when agents act on behalf of legitimate users, their access to banking services can create new vulnerabilities, particularly at institutions that lack proper safeguards.
Security is just one of the barriers facing agentic commerce. The European council’s formation highlights another—as AI agents begin selecting products and completing purchases, they may also influence which payment methods consumers use.
Digital-first payment options, including stablecoins, may be relatively straightforward to integrate into agentic wallets. For domestic payment providers, that could create pressure to ensure systems are equally accessible to AI-driven platforms. Doing so may require additional infrastructure and coordination to keep local payment methods competitive as agentic commerce develops.
