Visa launches live AI‑agent purchases across Europe with banks and fintech partners

Visa has enabled artificial‑intelligence agents to make purchases on behalf of cardholders in real‑world online stores. Working with more than 30 European banks, including Comdirect, Commerzbank, DKB, ING and others, the AI agents selected products, completed checkout and paid within consumer‑defined limits using Visa Intelligent Commerce, tokenisation and strong‑customer‑authentication safeguards. The transactions, confirmed by Visa officials, were part of the company’s Agentic Ready programme, which aims to bring safe, regulated AI‑driven commerce to market.

In parallel, fintech Nuvei completed a first‑party agentic‑commerce proof‑of‑concept with Visa, Arvato Systems and fashion brand Kings and Priests, showing that a merchant‑hosted AI agent can initiate and settle a payment entirely inside the agent without a separate payment flow. Nuvei’s Agentic Payments layer is designed to let any AI agent call a common execution interface.

Spain’s BBVA announced its inaugural AI‑agent‑initiated transaction, also using Visa’s Intelligent Commerce and Visa Payment Passkeys for biometric authentication, confirming that the technology works on live merchant sites. Meanwhile, Hungary’s K&H upgraded its infrastructure to recognise Mastercard’s new Agent Pay protocol, allowing the bank to identify and process transactions that are initiated by AI‑powered digital assistants on a customer’s behalf.

Together these pilots illustrate the emerging “agentic commerce” model: AI agents handle product search, ordering and payment while consumers retain control through authentication, spend caps and explicit authorisation.