Payment Expert’s Fintech Unwrapped delivers the latest developing news that has shaped the sector over the course of the last week.
This week, Visa and Revolut completed an agentic payment passkey test in a key European market to explore how customers can allow AI agents to perform payments, but under their control.
Also this week, Checkout.com has expanded further into the US, three major payment companies are working on a Know-Your-Agent framework, BVNK and Marqeta are expanding stablecoins via Mastercard, and Acquired is reducing fragmentation for recurring payments with its latest launch.
Visa and Revolut places payment trust in AI for customers
Revolut completed its first agentic payment in France in collaboration with Visa as part of the global card network’s Agentic Ready programme.
Performed in a controlled environment using card details and Visa European merchant systems, the agentic payment was competed via a Revolut retail card sending a transaction to Cleverbridge using Visa’s test agent My Agent and the Visa Payment Passkey authentication.
This test focused on understanding how that kind of payment could work in familiar purchase situations, while ensuring customer consent, issuer controls and existing protections remain firmly in place, according to Visa.
According to the 2026 Digital Barometer, 51% of the French population are using Gen AI tools, particularly among young adults increasing to 85%. As these tools become more sophisticated, the payments industry has been exploring how an AI agent could complete a transaction on someone’s behalf, with their permission but under their control.
Florence Mélique, Group SVP at Visa and Regional Managing Director for Europe FBL, said: “As AI is set to reshape the future of commerce, broad adoption will hinge on confidence and control. This transaction shows that consumers can delegate actions to AI agents thanks to safeguards and protections embedded in the payment experience. In the age of AI commerce, trust will be the real currency.”
Checkout.com is open for business to US merchants
Checkout.com launched direct acquiring in the US enabling greater access to card networks and reducing reliance on third-parties.
Eligible through its Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank (MALPB) charter licence it acquired this year, Checkout.com has the ability to optimise its platform for higher performance, along with faster operational execution for merchants in the US.
Jordan Reynolds, MALPB CEO and Head of North American Banking at Checkout.com, said: “Going live on the MALPB is a defining step in our US journey. It reflects years of investment, regulatory rigor, and operational build-out to create a stronger acquiring foundation in the US.
“As we begin processing through the charter, we are bringing more control into the payment lifecycle, which will help us deliver stronger performance, greater resilience, AI-powered payment optimisation, and more flexibility for enterprise merchants over time.”
Checkout.com received its MALPB licence in January 2026 after receiving approval from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance.
Three global payment leaders seek KYA interoperability compliance
Visa, Mastercard and Ant International announced rhe development of a Know-Your-Agent (KYA) compliance framework designed for card networks, digital wallets and agentic platforms.
The KYA framework seeks to simplify and facilitate agentic payments so agents can benefit from identity frameworks that enable common trust signals to be recognised across the payment ecosystem. Another objective focuses on helping reduce integration complexity and duplicative agent identity verification efforts.
This will enable faster time-to-market and lower integration cost for new agentic services with greater trust and risk visibility across participating networks.
The three organisations have previously rolled out their respective protocols — Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent, and Ant International’s Agentic Mobile Protocol — and will now explore opportunities to work towards more interoperable principles.
Jiang-Ming Yang, Chief Innovation Officer of Ant International, said: “Interoperable KYA across card and wallet networks is a critical foundation for trust in agentic commerce. Looking ahead, agent trust will need to evolve beyond identity to incorporate capabilities, behaviour, execution performance and risk signals.”
BVNK and Marqeta rolls out to stablecoins to digital wallets
BVNK and Marqeta are bringing stablecoin cards to crypto and non-crypto companies by embedding capabilities within existing digital wallets.
This will enable Marqeta’s customers to embed stablecoin capabilities into wallets, cards and everyday financial products in a bid to unlock stablecoin spending, allowing users to transact in digital dollars at millions of Mastercard merchants globally.
Anthony Peculic, Chief Strategy Officer at Marqeta. “By collaborating with Mastercard and BVNK we’re enabling our customers to issue stablecoin-backed cards that work anywhere cards are accepted, without requiring merchants to change how they accept payments.”
BVNK will provide the infrastructure for Marqeta’s customers to move and manage stablecoins alongside traditional fiat currencies through familiar financial products, while Marqeta will manage card issuance, acceptance and bank and network relationships.
Chris Harmse, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at BVNK, added: “Stablecoins are another financial building block. Developers shouldn’t need deep blockchain expertise to use them any more than they understand card networks today. Our role is to make that infrastructure invisible, and doing that from inside Mastercard’s network, alongside a partner like Marqeta who’s been building on it for years, is exactly the kind of connection we exist to make.”
Acquired to consolidate recurring payments with latest launch
Acquired rolled out Acquired Billing, a billing engine designed to help businesses manage recurring revenue across the full payment lifecycle.
In a bid to address billing payment fragmentation, Acquired Billing provides businesses with a unified platform to manage recurring payments from initial customer setup through to collection, recovery, and retention.
Through a single integration, businesses will be able to host and manage billing, create subscription plans, set custom start dates and payment intervals, manage free trials and discounts.
Greg Cox, Co-founder and CEO of Acquired and Quint Group, said: “Acquired Billing has been built around the way recurring commerce actually works. Businesses need to convert customers smoothly, collect payments reliably, recover failed payments intelligently and retain more customers over time.”
The launch expands Acquired’s recurring payments platform, which brings together three core capabilities: Acquired Billing, Acquired Acceptance and Recover.
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