Mastercard

With global online spending forecast to surpass $8 trillion by 2028, Visa and J.P. Morgan are deploying AI and machine learning to close the gap between fraud prevention and legitimate transaction approval. The rise of agentic payments — where software initiates purchases autonomously — is adding a new layer of accountability risk that existing frameworks were not designed to handle.

Visa launched a structured partner programme on 21 May 2025 that gives fintechs advanced APIs to embed Visa commercial products directly into their applications. Completed integrations are then made available to Visa's financial-institution clients, with Car IQ named as one of the first participants.

OKX has launched a Mastercard-powered virtual card in the United States enabling holders to spend USDC, USDT and USDG balances from an OKX Pay wallet at any Mastercard-accepting merchant without converting to fiat. The card carries no foreign exchange fees and offers cashback of 2% to 10% on eligible USDG spending, though New York and Massachusetts are excluded from availability.

Axis Bank and Mastercard have jointly launched the MyBiz credit card, a World Mastercard-category product aimed specifically at sole proprietors and small business owners. The launch comes alongside Mastercard's separately announced decision to debut its Payment Passkey Service in India in 2024.

Visa announced on 21 May 2025 the launch of its Commercial Integrated Partners programme, designed to let technology partners embed Visa commercial products directly into their own applications for financial institution clients. The programme removes the need for banks and issuers to build direct technical integrations with enterprise resource planning or fleet management platforms themselves.

Mastercard and Beast Industries have announced a creator card partnership, following Beast Industries' acquisition of fintech platform Step in February 2026. The tie-up positions the Greenville, NC-based creator platform to offer card products underpinned by its own full-stack technology infrastructure.

Fiserv will add Raj Seshadri, Senior Strategic Advisor to the Mastercard CEO and former Chief Commercial Payments Officer at the card network, to its board of directors on 30 November 2026. Incumbent director Henrique De Castro will not stand for re-election at the 2027 annual meeting, with no disagreement cited.

Fiserv announced expanded partnerships with both Mastercard and Visa on 22 December 2025, followed by collaborations with Microsoft and OpenAI, as the payments infrastructure group positions itself for agent-initiated autonomous commerce. The moves raise open regulatory questions around frameworks such as PSD2 that were designed for human-initiated transactions.

Visa is lifting its Canadian small-merchant interchange threshold from $300,000 to $750,000 in annual Visa sales, effective October 24, 2026, bringing a larger cohort of businesses within reach of discounted rates established under the Government of Canada's 2023 interchange agreements. Mastercard's equivalent threshold remains at $175,000 in annual Mastercard sales, and the CFIB has cautioned that new credit card fees may be emerging.

Smart contracts can fire payment instructions the moment a pre-defined condition is met, but the speed and method of settlement are determined by bank connectivity, not the contract itself. Claims about cost savings and sub-dollar processing remain unverified or single-sourced.

Visa activated USDC stablecoin settlement for U.S. issuer and acquirer partners on 16 December 2025, with Cross River Bank and Lead Bank named as initial participants, then two days later disclosed hundreds of completed AI-agent-initiated transactions with partners including BILL and Billtrust in a live invoice-payment pilot.

Visa, BILL and Billtrust have launched a live pilot enabling AI agents to initiate and complete buyer invoice payments through supplier portals end-to-end. The companies describe it as the first live pilot of its kind for trusted AI agent payments between buyer and supplier platforms.

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.