Vendor profile, card network
Mastercard
In short
Mastercard said in September 2025 that every cardholder in the United States would be enabled for Agent Pay by the holiday season, with Citi customers among the first to try it. Its page says only registered agents may transact, using network tokens. The company also offers Agent Pay for Machines, Verifiable Intent and an MCP server for developers.
At a glance
- What it is
- Card network behind Mastercard Agent Pay (agentic tokens for registered agents), Agent Pay for Machines, Verifiable Intent and developer tooling such as the Agent Toolkit MCP server.
- Type
- Card network
- Homepage
- mastercard.com
- Last read
What it does for this layer
- Mastercard said on 10 Sep 2025 that all U.S. Mastercard cardholders would be enabled for Agent Pay by the holiday season, with global rollout to follow. mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 10 Sep 2025.
- Mastercard named Citi and U.S. Bank cardholders as the first to try agent shopping, as enablers such as PayOS, Firmly.AI and Basis Theory went live. mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 10 Sep 2025.
- Mastercard's Agent Toolkit on Mastercard Developers exposes Mastercard API documentation to AI assistants through an MCP server, with Claude, Cursor and GitHub Copilot named as supported tools. mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 10 Sep 2025.
- Mastercard launched Agent Sign-Up for Agent Toolkit users to identify their agents, and Insight Tokens that let agents use permissioned Mastercard insights with consumer consent. mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 10 Sep 2025.
- Mastercard sells Agentic Consulting Services to issuers, acquirers, merchants and AI enablers designing agent shopping experiences. mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 10 Sep 2025.
- Mastercard's Agent Pay page says only registered agents can transact, governed and traceable with Mastercard network tokens. mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026.
- Mastercard's Agent Pay page groups the programme into Know your agent, Interface standards (a universal data exchange protocol), Verifiable intent and Agent Pay for Machines. mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026.
- Google Cloud's AP2 launch post of 16 Sep 2025 quotes Mastercard among the collaborating organisations. cloud.google.com, read 5 Nov 2026, dated 16 Sep 2025. Secondary source
Partner lists that name it
| Where it appears | Source | Basis | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner logos on the Mastercard Agent Pay page | mastercard.com | Observed | 5 Nov 2026 |
| Endorser list of the Universal Commerce Protocol | ucp.dev | Secondary source | 5 Nov 2026 |
Products and plans
| Product | What it is | Price on file |
|---|---|---|
| Mastercard Agent Pay | Agentic tokens and the Agent Pay Acceptance Framework for registered, verified agents. | No price on file |
| Agent Pay for Machines | Permissioned machine payments settled across cards, accounts and stablecoins, in Early Access since October 2026. | No price on file |
| Verifiable Intent | An open SD-JWT delegation chain that binds an agent purchase to authenticated user intent. | No price on file |
| Agent Toolkit | An MCP server on Mastercard Developers that serves Mastercard API documentation to AI assistants. | No price on file |
Standards
| Standard | Status | Evidence and source |
|---|---|---|
| ACP | no statement | None in the pages read, 5 Nov 2026 |
| UCP | announced | ucp.dev, read 5 Nov 2026 |
| AP2 | announced | cloud.google.com, read 5 Nov 2026 |
| Visa TAP | no statement | None in the pages read, 5 Nov 2026 |
| Visa IC | no statement | None in the pages read, 5 Nov 2026 |
| Mastercard Agent Pay | supports | "By the holiday season, all U.S. Mastercard cardholders will be enabled for the Mastercard Agent Pay program" (10 Sep 2025). mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026 |
| Agent Pay for Machines | partial | Agent Pay for Machines opened Early Access on 20 Oct 2026. mastercard.com, read 4 Nov 2026 |
| Amex ACE | no statement | None in the pages read, 5 Nov 2026 |
| x402 | no statement | None in the pages read, 5 Nov 2026 |
| MPP | no statement | None in the pages read, 5 Nov 2026 |
| Link for agents | no statement | None in the pages read, 5 Nov 2026 |
| Verifiable Intent | partial | Verifiable Intent is a draft (v0.1) maintained by Mastercard. github.com, read 4 Nov 2026 |
Checks on this vendor's domains
| Check | Result | Domain read | Dated | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ora agent-readiness score (cached) | 43/100 (D) | mastercard.com | 1 Nov 2026 | ora.ai |
| robots.txt | HTTP 403, 0 user-agent groups | mastercard.com | 4 Nov 2026 | mastercard.com |
| llms.txt | HTTP 403 | mastercard.com | 4 Nov 2026 | mastercard.com |
| UCP profile at /.well-known/ucp.json | HTTP 403 | mastercard.com | 4 Nov 2026 | mastercard.com |
| Cloudflare isitagentready scan | no result (the scanner got HTTP 403 from the site) | mastercard.com | 5 Nov 2026 | POST /api/scan on isitagentready.com, documented in llms-full.txt |
| Homepage fetch at build | HTTP 403 | mastercard.com | 5 Nov 2026 | mastercard.com |
What it does not do
- Mastercard does not acquire merchants or process their payments; merchants accept Agent Pay through their acquirer or PSP.
- Mastercard's published rules (June 2026 editions) contain no provision naming agent-initiated transactions, so dispute treatment rests on the Agent Pay framework documents, not the rulebook.
Related pages on this site
- Mastercard Agent Pay, protocol profile
- Mastercard Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M), protocol profile
- Verifiable Intent (VI), protocol profile
- All card networks in the vendors section
- All vendors
Sources
- Mastercard Agent Pay, read 5 Nov 2026
- Mastercard unveils new tools and collaborations, read 5 Nov 2026
- ucp.dev/, read 5 Nov 2026
- cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol, read 5 Nov 2026
- mastercard.com/us/en/news-and-trends/press/2026/october/Mastercard-Agent-Pay-for-Machines-in-action.html, read 4 Nov 2026
- Verifiable Intent repository, read 4 Nov 2026
- Ora cached score record for mastercard.com, read 5 Nov 2026
- robots.txt of mastercard.com, read 4 Nov 2026
- llms.txt of mastercard.com, read 4 Nov 2026
- UCP profile path on mastercard.com, read 4 Nov 2026
- isitagentready scan service documentation (llms-full.txt), read 5 Nov 2026
Last reviewed