Mastercard

Nuvei has secured authorisation from the Payments Association of South Africa to provide local acquiring and payment acceptance services, bringing the Montreal-headquartered company's local acquiring footprint to 52 markets globally.

AI agents are completing purchases autonomously using stored credentials, but card network dispute and chargeback frameworks were written for human-authorised transactions — leaving liability for agent-initiated payments legally unresolved. Legal commentary from Goodwin Procter and Astraea Counsel confirms no clear rule yet determines who bears the loss when an AI tool acts beyond its mandate.

Mastercard has announced plans to mandate offline transaction capability across European card infrastructure, with implementation milestones scheduled for 2027. The April 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout, which disrupted digital payments for around 55 million people, is cited in reporting as a key catalyst.

EMVCo has published a draft framework for agentic payments and opened it for public comment until 30 September 2026, setting out how consumer intent and delegated authority could travel alongside card transactions initiated by AI agents rather than humans.

Mastercard has made at least three public announcements under its Agent Pay agentic payments programme between April 2025 and September 2026, indicating a sustained product build-out. A June 2026 launch targets machine-to-machine payment scenarios, while a September 2026 announcement points to new trust and intelligence capabilities layered onto the platform.

EMVCo published a draft framework for agentic payments on 1 September 2026, opening a formal industry comment period that ran through 30 September. The document introduces an Intent Services concept to anchor consumer authorisation in AI-executed transactions but stops short of defining business rules or finished technical standards.

Mastercard has launched a multi-phase programme to support AI-driven autonomous commerce, centred on two named products — Agent Connect and Agent Pay — with a follow-on trust and intelligence services announcement in 2026 extending the initial September 2025 reveal. The initiative is framed around merchant readiness for non-human transaction participants.

SoFi Bank, N.A. began settling its Mastercard-powered credit and debit card transactions in SoFiUSD on 22 September 2026, six months after the partnership was announced. The card programme is expected to process more than $25 billion in annualised volume under the blockchain-based settlement arrangement.

Mastercard and Google Pay have announced a collaboration to enable device biometric authentication for card payments in India, using Mastercard's Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method. The partnership was previewed at Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai and is conditional on participation by eligible issuing banks.

A Mastercard-commissioned Bain & Company report projects fintechs will hold 48% of primary SME cross-border payment relationships by 2028, up from 30% in 2025, while banks are forecast to fall from 42% to 28% over the same period. The findings draw on a survey of internationally active SMEs across 11 countries.

Mastercard's inaugural Dreamonomics report finds 89% of small and medium-sized business owners want more digital tools, while 71% cite cyber protection as a priority — even as 68% say they favour stability over speed. Key methodological details including sample size and country coverage are not confirmed in verified press materials.

Mastercard and PYMNTS co-convened an executive roundtable on agentic commerce at Mastercard's New York City Tech Hub in September 2026, moderated by PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. Panelist identities, attendance figures and specific takeaways could not be independently verified from primary sources at publication time.

Five domestic payment networks — Bancomat, Bizum, EPI Company/Wero, SIBS-MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay — have established a jointly owned entity called the European Network for Payments to connect their systems across 13 countries. The equal-shareholding structure, announced on 30 September 2026, follows an MoU signed in February and targets cross-border instant account-to-account payments starting with P2P transfers.

Citi and Mastercard announced on 17 September 2026 the launch of Smart Subscriptions in the United Arab Emirates, embedding subscription-management capabilities powered by Mastercard's Ethoca technology directly within the Citi Mobile App. The product, which pre-dates this deployment with documented Mastercard rollouts from 2023 and 2024, gives cardholders visibility and control over recurring charges.

Global payments revenue growth is set to decelerate from 7% per year to approximately 5%, according to McKinsey's 2024 Global Payments Report presented at Sibos in Beijing, even as total revenues are forecast to reach $3.1 trillion by 2028. Four structural forces — falling interest rates, instant payments proliferation, value-chain fragmentation and rising fraud costs — are identified as the primary drivers of the slowdown.

American Express has unveiled the next generation of its Amex Corporate programme, combining new cashback cards, integrated expense-management software and a dedicated mobile application in a single corporate offering. Cashback rates, software specifications and geographic availability remain unconfirmed.

Visa compressed a sweeping set of moves into one fiscal quarter, announcing an intended acquisition, a stablecoin minting and management platform, an AI financial assistant for banks, and onchain lending between June and September 2026. The cluster of announcements signals the company is repositioning itself well beyond traditional card-network services.

Between July and late September 2026 Visa announced a stablecoin minting platform, an onchain lending initiative, the acquisition of BioCatch and a World Bank risk-sharing partnership — making it one of the company's more publicly active quarters on record. The moves span digital assets, fraud prevention and emerging-markets financial inclusion.

A consortium of more than 140 companies — including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase and BlackRock — launched Open Standard and its dollar-pegged stablecoin OUSD on 30 June 2026, with the stated aim of redistributing stablecoin yield to participating institutions. The announcement triggered an approximately 15% drop in Circle's stock price.

A US court has certified a class action brought by banks challenging the fees Apple charges for Apple Pay access, marking a significant escalation in antitrust scrutiny of Big Tech's grip on contactless payment infrastructure. The case puts America's courts on a path already mapped by EU regulators and Australian banks.

Reports suggest Moov Financial has built a peer-to-peer payments layer spanning both Visa Direct and Mastercard Send — but the claim remains unverified. If true, the infrastructure play could let fintechs embed cross-network transfers through a single API without bilateral network deals.

A coalition of close to 1,000 US merchants has filed formal objections urging a federal judge to reject the proposed class-action settlement in MDL 1720, the two-decade antitrust battle over Visa and Mastercard interchange fees. The scale of opposition puts the deal's structural adequacy — not just its dollar value — squarely before the court.

Walmart has again opposed a proposed card-fee settlement, with other merchants joining in characterising the deal as inadequate and unfair, according to Payments Dive reporting. Key details including the settlement amount and card networks involved remain unverified by The Fin Desk pending review of primary filings.

The UK Payments Delivery Company is understood to be seeking industry equity to fund the New Payments Architecture, the programme designed to replace Faster Payments and Bacs infrastructure. Specific figures remain unverified; the move would mark a structural shift in how the UK funds critical national payments plumbing.

Thredd and iPayLinks have been reported to have announced a Mastercard virtual commercial debit card partnership with a cross-border payments application, according to a single secondary source. Material details including each party's technical role and Mastercard's involvement remain unconfirmed from primary documentation.