How Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Adyen and PayPal Let an AI Agent Pay
A provider-by-provider matrix for agent-initiated checkout: delegated payment credentials, limits, status and dispute wording, plus the questions to ask your PSP.
On this page
- What is a delegated payment credential in an agent-initiated checkout?
- Which protocol does the payment provider have to speak?
- Which providers issue delegated credentials, and how ready is each?
- How do Stripe and Adyen differ on delegated credentials?
- What does Adyen's delegated payment integration require?
- Where do Visa and Mastercard sit relative to the Agentic Commerce Protocol?
- Do Chase and Citi have a role in the Agentic Commerce Protocol?
- Who handles a dispute on an order an agent placed?
- What should you ask your PSP?
- Sources
Agent-initiated checkout in 2026 runs on delegated payment credentials, and the payment providers behind agentic commerce (Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, PayPal and Adyen) issue them at two layers. Stripe and Adyen mint a token scoped to one merchant, one amount and one expiry, and PayPal lists delegated payment tokens through Braintree. Visa and Mastercard provision agent-specific network tokens underneath, tied to what the cardholder approved. Everything below comes from each provider's own documentation or press releases as we read them on October 7, 2026.
What is a delegated payment credential in an agent-initiated checkout?
In an agent-initiated checkout, delegated payment credentials are tokens that stand in for the shopper's card and carry limits set before the merchant receives them. The clearest public definition is the Delegated Payment Spec that OpenAI publishes as part of the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). Its allowance object has six fields: a reason (the only current value is one_time), max_amount, currency, checkout_session_id, merchant_id and expires_at. The spec states the effect plainly: "The payment token is restricted by the delegated payment's max amount and expiry, helping protect users and prevent misuse."
The money still moves on the merchant's rails, because the same page says OpenAI is not the merchant of record and that merchants bring their own PSP.
Which protocol does the payment provider have to speak?
For an AI agent checkout, the payment provider's side of the delegated payment protocol is a single exchange: the agent platform sends the shopper's payment method with an allowance, and the provider returns a constrained token for the merchant to charge. ACP works this way, and OpenAI's spec describes Stripe's Shared Payment Token as the first compatible implementation, with more PSPs to come.
AP2, the Agent Payments Protocol, works from consent records. The site for AP2 describes verifiable digital credentials called mandates: a Checkout Mandate that captures the items and purchase details negotiated between agent and merchant, and a Payment Mandate that authorizes payment against a specific instrument and is shared with the credential provider, the networks and the merchant's payment processor. It also announces a v0.2 release and a donation to the FIDO Alliance, where standardization continues. An ACP allowance is a limit your PSP enforces, and an AP2 mandate is signed evidence that travels with the transaction.
Which providers issue delegated credentials, and how ready is each?
Providers of delegated payment credentials for agent-initiated checkout come in two kinds: PSPs that mint a merchant-scoped token, and card networks that provision an agent-specific one. The matrix records what each says on the pages linked in this article. "None found" means we found no such wording there, and it says nothing about a provider's contract or network rules.
| Provider | Credential | Limits it documents | Status on its own pages | Dispute wording |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | Shared payment token granted to the seller's Stripe profile | Currency, maximum amount, expiry; the agent can revoke | Preview API version; US, Canada and select European countries | None found; refunds and reporting behave as with a direct payment method |
| Adyen | Merchant-scoped ACP token | One-time allowance tied to a merchant account, checkout session, maximum amount and expiry | Access by request; PCI DSS Level 1 and a security review for agent platforms | None found; ECI noted as relevant to liability shift |
| PayPal (Braintree) | Delegated payment tokens for ACP; Google Pay payment handler for UCP | None found on the overview | Documented for Braintree merchants | None found on the overview |
| Visa | Agent-specific pass-through payment token | Payment Instructions authenticated with a passkey | "This product is in the process of development and deployment." | Commerce signals intended to resolve most disputes quickly |
| Mastercard | Agentic Tokens under Agent Pay | Consumer controls what the agent may buy | 2025 release: all U.S. cardholders by that year's holiday season; September 2026 release: agent-probability score in U.S. testing | A process to clarify unrecognized agentic transactions |
The PayPal row is thin because its public overview is. The developer page from PayPal says Agent Ready helps Braintree merchants accept payments from AI shopping assistants on platforms including ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini. It lists delegated payment tokens through Braintree for ACP, and a Google Pay payment handler through Braintree for the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) that serves Google AI Mode and Gemini. We found no limits, status label or protection terms on that overview, so ask your Braintree contact for them.
How do Stripe and Adyen differ on delegated credentials?
Stripe and Adyen both give an agent-initiated checkout a delegated credential on the ACP pattern, and they differ in how an agent platform gets access and how the merchant charges the token. In the documentation from Stripe, the agent issues a shared payment token (SPT) to the seller's Stripe profile with usage limits for currency, maximum amount and expiry, and Stripe notes that the agent sets the maximum to match the transaction total. The seller confirms a PaymentIntent with the token, after which refunds and reporting behave as if the seller had supplied the payment method directly. The agent can revoke an SPT at any time.
Two notes on that page reach past the token itself. A footnote for agents says Stripe, in collaboration with the card networks, might use tokens issued through programs such as Mastercard's Agent Pay and Visa's Intelligent Commerce. Stripe might also trigger 3D Secure in four listed cases, including when the issuer or the seller requests it, which sends the shopper to the bank's interface before the order can complete.
What does Adyen's delegated payment integration require?
Adyen's agentic commerce documentation presents delegated payment as a tokenization service for agent platforms running the ACP checkout flow. Under the guide from Adyen, the platform sends a card number or a network token with its cryptogram, the allowance and a set of risk signals, and a signal marked blocked or manual_review prevents tokenization. Adyen returns a merchant-scoped ACP token that, in the guide's words, "Does not expose raw card data." It cannot be used for a different session or for an amount above the allowance.
The merchant charges it as a stored payment method, with shopperInteraction set to ContAuth and recurringProcessingModel set to UnscheduledCardOnFile. An agent order is therefore submitted as an unscheduled card-on-file charge, and it is worth asking Adyen how issuers treat that for a purchase the shopper approved minutes earlier. On liability the page says only that the ECI value is relevant for liability shift qualification, and we found no dispute or chargeback wording there. Access is by request to an Adyen account manager or the support team, and the agent platform must meet PCI DSS Level 1 and complete Adyen's security review.
Where do Visa and Mastercard sit relative to the Agentic Commerce Protocol?
The Agentic Commerce Protocol, Mastercard and Visa meet at the network token. ACP's Delegated Payment Spec does not mention Mastercard, and Visa appears in it only as an example card brand, though the spec says network tokens are preferred, with a full card number as the fallback.
The developer page from Visa lists capabilities for Visa Intelligent Commerce that include tokenization, authentication, payment instructions and signals. The token is "A new pass-through payment token, specific to agents, that is intended for use at Visa-accepting merchant locations." Payment Instructions, which the user authenticates with a passkey, are meant to ensure that credential requests match what the user approved and that authorizations reaching VisaNet match the original instruction. On April 8, 2026, a release from Visa introduced Intelligent Commerce Connect, which it says enables merchants to accept payments initiated through Trusted Agent Protocol, Machine Payments Protocol, ACP and UCP. It was in pilot with select partners on that date, with more partners due during 2026, and we found no later Visa release announcing general availability.
Mastercard announced Agent Pay and Mastercard Agentic Tokens on April 29, 2025. That release from Mastercard says agents must be registered and verified before they pay, that consumers control what an agent may purchase, and that issuers and merchants will be able to recognize agent-facilitated transactions. Mastercard's product and developer pages did not load for us on October 7, 2026, so its row rests on investor-site releases. The most recent one we read, a September 30, 2026 release from Mastercard, expands Agent Pay with trust and intelligence services, starting with a score for the likelihood that an AI agent initiated a transaction, which is rolling out for testing in the U.S.
Do Chase and Citi have a role in the Agentic Commerce Protocol?
The Agentic Commerce Protocol gives Chase, Citi and other issuing banks no named role that we could find: neither bank appears in the Delegated Payment Spec, which concerns the agent platform, the merchant and the PSP. Issuers enter through the network programs. A September 10, 2025 release from Mastercard said all U.S. Mastercard cardholders would be enabled for Agent Pay by that year's holiday season, with Citi and U.S. Bank Mastercard cardholders first in line. We found no Chase statement in the pages we read, and the 2026 Mastercard investor releases we read do not confirm that the rollout finished. An issuer's visible lever in these documents is authentication, since Stripe's documentation allows for issuer-requested 3D Secure.
Who handles a dispute on an order an agent placed?
The one explicit rule we found leaves disputes with the merchant. OpenAI's spec says, "Settlement, refunds, chargebacks, and compliance remain with the merchant and their PSP." The network layers add evidence. Visa's signals capability collects the user's original instruction and the details of each authorized purchase, which Visa says allows quick resolution of most disputes. AP2's site describes a cryptographic audit trail for every transaction that aids dispute resolution, and Mastercard's April 2025 release mentions a process to help clarify agentic transactions a cardholder does not recognize. We found no published reason code, liability shift or chargeback rule specific to agent-initiated payments in any of these sources.
A hypothetical example shows where this bites. A shopper tells an assistant to buy trail shoes for under $120, and the agent checks out a $118 pair in the wrong width. Following Stripe's note, and assuming tax and shipping are already in that price, the token's maximum would be $118, the order total, so the shopper's $120 budget never reaches the merchant. The allowance held and the authorization matched. If the shopper disputes the charge, the merchant holds its checkout session record, while the instruction that would settle the argument sits with the agent platform or the network.
What should you ask your PSP?
- Which credential will reach us from each assistant: an ACP token, a network agent token or a wallet payload?
- What enforces the amount cap and expiry, and what happens on a retry, a partial capture or a split shipment?
- How is the charge flagged to the issuer, and how does that flag affect approval rates and 3D Secure?
- When a shopper disputes an agent order, which instruction, mandate or session data can we retrieve as evidence?
- Which parts are preview or pilot, in which countries, and under which terms?
None of this matters until an assistant chooses your product. That side of the work is visibility: AI share of voice measures how often assistants name you, our guide on how to get cited by ChatGPT covers the content side, and the merchant name on your PSP profile should match your feed and site for the reasons in our piece on entity consistency. The AI Visibility Checker is a further resource for a first read, and our AI search optimization and agentic AI automation services cover the rest. Whichever provider you use, get the dispute-evidence answer in writing before the first agent order arrives.
Sources
- OpenAI, Delegated Payment Spec
- Stripe, Shared payment tokens (Sellers and Agents views)
- Adyen, Agentic payments with ACP
- PayPal, Agent Ready overview
- Visa, Visa Intelligent Commerce on Visa Developer
- Visa, press release of April 8, 2026
- Mastercard, press release of April 29, 2025
- Mastercard, press release of September 10, 2025
- Mastercard, press release of September 30, 2026
- AP2, Agent Payments Protocol site