Visa: How Many Fintechs are Ready for Agentic AI?

The payments landscape is pivoting from manual clicks to automated intent.

Visa has announced the launch of Visa Agentic Ready, a global initiative designed to equip the financial ecosystem for the rise of agentic commerce.

Launching first in Europe and the UK, the programme serves as a primary pillar of Visa Intelligent Commerce – a strategic framework focused on scaling AI-driven experiences without compromising security.

In this inaugural phase, the focus is squarely on issuer readiness. Visa is providing partners with a structured environment to test and validate transactions initiated by AI agents. By collaborating with selected merchants, issuing banks can explore how these automated flows operate within controlled production environments. 

The goal of the programme is to ensure that as agents take on more responsibility for the consumer journey, the underlying rails remain robust. Many partners have already committed to the programme, including Santander, HSBC UK, Revolut, Nationwide Building Society, the Bank of Cyprus, Banca Transilvania, and DZ Bank AG. 

Through the programme, participating issuers will gain first-hand experience of how agentic commerce platforms can securely initiate and complete transactions on behalf of consumers, while maintaining the trust, control and protections that underpin the Visa network.

“As AI agents increasingly shape how people shop and buy, payments need to keep up,” says Mathieu Altwegg, Head of Product & Solutions, Visa Europe.

“Visa Agentic Ready will initially help European issuers prepare for secure, scalable agent‑initiated payments, built on infrastructure people already trust," he adds.

A foundation of trust in Europe

While the ambitions for Agentic Ready are global, the decision to debut in Europe is a calculated move. The region’s high adoption rates of tokenisation, passkeys and biometric authentication provide a ready-made laboratory for sophisticated AI commerce.

Visa’s “trust layer” – a combination of identity verification and risk controls – acts as the engine for the programme, ensuring that every automated payment is tied to a verified individual with explicit consent.

Matías Sánchez, Global Head of Cards and Digital Solutions, Santander, notes: “This is a major step in making AI-assisted shopping practical. By testing a live transaction, we demonstrated how these technologies act as a key enabler of secure, interoperable agentic commerce within a connected payments ecosystem, linking banks, networks and merchants, while preserving consumer protections and controls. 

“As part of this initiative, Banco Santander demonstrated a real-world use case by purchasing a book with a Santander España Visa card, showcasing the practical application of agent-enabled commerce.”

The phased rollout will help ensure these payments remain easy to run at scale. This evolution is critical as the shopping journey becomes increasingly programmable, moving toward a model where credentials respond flexibly to a consumer’s context.

Industry giants join the pilot

The programme has already secured a significant roster of Tier 1 financial institutions and neobanks. These partners are not just observing; they are actively validating how agent-initiated payments behave in the real world to build confidence before a wider commercial release.

For legacy players, the programme offers a safe harbour for experimentation. Tom Riley, Director of Group Retail Products, Nationwide, comments: “We’re delighted to join Visa’s Agentic Ready Program. This collaboration gives us the opportunity to innovate, explore and test new technologies in a safe and controlled environment, helping us understand how they could enhance the way our customers manage their money. 

“Customer payments will continue as normal throughout these trials. At with all innovation, our priority is that it helps customers feel more confident, informed and in control.”

From concept to checkout

The practical application of this technology has already been demonstrated in live scenarios. Maintaining consumer protection is paramount as banks and networks become more deeply linked. For fintechs like Revolut, being at the forefront of this shift is a matter of keeping pace with the rapid evolution of AI tools.

Rom Jackson, Head of Product, Revolut Card Payments, explains: “As AI evolves into an active shopping tool, the underlying payment infrastructure must keep pace. By collaborating with Visa on Agentic commerce, we are ensuring that both humans and AI Agents can make a secure, instant, and safe payment with the Revolut Visa card. We are proud to work alongside Visa to enable this, ensuring our customers can leverage the full power of AI with the same world-class security they expect.”

The era of agentic commerce has landed firmly at the frontier of fintech, as innovation strives to keep up. Recently, retail giant Debenhams paired with PayPal to offer an AI assisted shopping experience for consumers. Digital payments are altering consumer expectations, from retail to even purchasing insurance products through ChatGPT, as Experian and Neptune Flood Insurance are demonstrating. 

Andrew Rankin, Chief Payments Officer, HSBC UK, says: “We are pleased to be working with Visa to design and test a secure, reliable and fast new agentic payments ecosystem. As a leader in digital payments, HSBC UK is committed to increasing resilience and creating better experiences for our customers for both domestic and cross-border payments.”

Agentic AI infrastructure is now catching up to the interface, allowing the next generation of digital wallets to serve both human and machine users.