Visa, Mastercard and Ant International Launch KYA Framework to Verify AI Agent Identities in Payments

My take: Visa, Mastercard, and Ant International announced this week the KYA (Know-Your-Agent) framework, an initiative to align identity verification protocols for AI agents in payment transactions. The premise is straightforward: if an agent is buying something on your behalf, the payment network needs to verify that the agent is who it claims to be, that it is authorized by you, and that it meets established security criteria. The projection motivating this collaboration is that by 2030, AI agents could orchestrate between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in global commerce.

The technical challenge is real: the three actors bring distinct proprietary protocols (Visa TAP, Mastercard Verifiable Intent, and Ant AMP), and the framework's goal is to make them work together without requiring any company to abandon its own standards. The work is coordinated through BuildFin.ai, a platform convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

For those building products with AI agents that make purchases, reservations, or any financial transaction on behalf of the user, this signals a clear regulatory direction: agent identification is not going to be optional. What verification protocols does your agent have today to demonstrate it is acting with legitimate user authorization?