At the Visa Payments Forum (VPF) in Paris, which brings together more than 2,000 leading representatives of the payments industry with the aim of highlighting the trends and innovations shaping the future of payments, Visa (NYSE: V) announced today, Thursday, the implementation of agentic commerce transactions in real-world conditions in Europe.
According to the relevant press release, AI agents make purchases through the websites of partner merchants on behalf of cardholders.
In these transactions, AI agents browsed, selected products, and completed purchases, acting within the parameters set by the consumer. Through its network, Visa connects banks, merchants and AI systems, enabling secure and authenticated transactions, in full alignment with the European regulatory framework.
These transactions are supported by Visa Intelligent Commerce, Visa’s framework of initiatives for secure shopping experiences through AI, which are carried out following the consumer’s explicit authorization, with AI agents operating strictly within predefined limits and parameters set by the user himself.
Agentic commerce in action across the ecosystem
Visa already supports and is expanding real-time agentic commerce transactions in Europe, in collaboration with more than 30 card issuers, allowing AI agents to make purchases on behalf of cardholders, with the participation of merchants such as lastminute.com, Frasers, Cleverbridge and BrickDepot.
These transactions cover different sectors, such as travel, retail and e-commerce, proving that agentic commerce can now be applied in real-world conditions and across a wide range of everyday consumer needs.
This milestone marks the next phase of Visa’s global Agentic Ready program in Europe, combining the necessary infrastructure, standards and partners required for the development of agentic commerce in practice.
“We are now seeing AI agents make direct purchases on behalf of consumers from independent merchants”, said Sevi Vassileva, General Manager for Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Israel at Visa. “The next step is to establish this innovation by bringing together the entire ecosystem, from standards and infrastructure to partners and providers, with trust built in from the outset. This is the approach with which we established contactless payments, and it is the same one we are following as the future of commerce takes shape”.
Alessandro Petazzi, CEO of lastminute.com, said: “At lastminute.com, our role has always been to fully take on the travel experience – not simply to inspire it, but also to make it happen. This entails managing complexity: flights, hotels, payments, real-time changes. We are already a trusted link in the transaction chain and, as artificial intelligence changes the way people search and plan, that role becomes even more important.
Visa’s work in the field of identity and trust is what makes real-world implementation possible. We are still at an early stage, but this is the right testing ground and we are happy to participate”.
For the first time, the possibility for merchant participation
Merchant participation was made possible through Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP) and Agent Directory, which are designed to help merchants securely identify and work with certified AI agents across different platforms and environments.
These capabilities provide a secure way to identify agents, allowing merchants to distinguish trusted AI-driven transactions from unverified activity, while maintaining control over how agents gain access to their websites, locate products and complete transactions.
Without requiring new infrastructure, these capabilities can be integrated into existing risk management systems, security policies and user experience management tools. TAP is designed to operate alongside existing as well as new e-commerce protocols, allowing its immediate adoption by merchants.
The implementation is supported by infrastructure providers, including Cloudflare and Akamai.
Secure transactions through AI agents
Issuing banks have the ability to participate through Visa Payment Passkeys, which provide a reliable and compatible way to authenticate transactions initiated by AI agents on behalf of consumers.
Each transaction is securely approved and directly linked to a verified user and his explicit instruction, ensuring that the consumer retains full control over when and how payments are made, while at the same time full compliance with European requirements for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is ensured.
By ensuring the identification of the cardholder and the recognition of the trusted AI agent, Visa provides a critical layer of trust, enabling the secure completion of transactions with full transparency and control.
Shaping the future of digital commerce
By enabling trusted interactions between AI agents, merchant websites and issuing banks, Visa contributes to addressing key barriers to the adoption of agentic commerce -such as consumer control over transactions, merchant trust and full oversight by banks.
As all of the above are already operating in real-world conditions, agentic commerce can gradually expand to more sectors and markets in Europe. This model is also expanding to commercial and B2B payments, where the same principles of secure and trusted transactions enabled by AI agents can enhance business efficiency and productivity.
Partners of the Visa Agentic Ready program
Issuing banks that have completed transactions through AI agents with partner merchants, using Visa Payment Passkeys and in full compliance with the requirements of Strong Customer Authentication, include:
Piraeus Bank, Alpha Bank, Abanca, Bankinter, Barclays, BBVA, CaixaBank, Ceska Sporitelna, comdirect, Commerzbank, Cornèrcard, Bank of Cyprus, Deutsche Kreditbank, HSBC UK, ING, Klarna, Lloyds Banking Group, mBank, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest, Nexi Group, Nordea Bank, OP Cooperative, , PKO Bank Polski, Revolut, S-Payment, Swisscard, Tatra banka, Banca Transilvania, Vanquis Bank, Viseca.