Mastercard Agent Pay debuted last year in the US for Citi and US Bank Mastercard cardholders. And then in October, PayPal announced that Mastercard Agent Pay will be integrated into PayPal’s wallet to allow AI agents to simply and securely complete transactions on behalf of PayPal users.
Mastercard Agent Pay: Australia launch with CBA
This was followed by Australia’s first Agent Pay transactions in January with a Commonwealth Bank of Australia issued debit card. And then in February, Mastercard Agent Pay completed New Zealand’s first authenticated agentic transactions with Westpac. And now Mastercard Agent Pay has premiered in Europe.
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Mastercard partnerships in the field of agentic payments currently include AI and commerce experts, including Stripe, Google and Ant International’s Antom.
Mastercard Agent Pay: European launch with Santander
Santander and Mastercard have successfully completed Europe’s first live end-to-end payment executed by an artificial intelligence (AI) agent. This represents the first agentic payment carried out within a regulated banking framework and marks a significant milestone in the application of AI systems capable of initiating and completing transactions on behalf of customers. Agentic commerce sees AI-powered agents search for, discover and in some instances even make purchases on behalf of consumers. Mastercard is keen to stress that this is within predefined limits and permissions, while maintaining strict standards of security, privacy and consumer protection.
AI: A transformative force in the evolution of payments
Matías Sánchez, global head of Cards and Digital Solutions at Santander, said: “At Santander, we see AI as a transformative force in the evolution of payments. Our role is not only to adopt innovation, but to shape it responsibly, embedding security, governance and customer protection by design. As AI agents become part of everyday commerce, building trusted, scalable frameworks will be essential to unlocking their full potential.”
The milestone confirms Santander’s technical and operational readiness to support emerging AI-driven transaction models. The bank will now move into extended testing and scaling, exploring additional use cases and partnerships while maintaining strong controls, resilience and regulatory alignment.
Mastercard Agent Pay integrates AI agents into the payment flow as visible, governed participants, enabling seamless interaction between issuers, acquirers and merchants. PayOS supported the end-to-end orchestration of the transaction.
Kelly Devine, President, Europe at Mastercard, said: “Agentic payments represent a profound shift in how commerce is initiated and executed. With Mastercard Agent Pay, we are applying the same principles that have defined our network for decades — security, trust, interoperability and global scale — to a new era of AI-enabled commerce. This milestone with Banco Santander demonstrates that innovation and trust can advance together.”
The pilot was conducted within Santander’s regulated payment framework and does not constitute a commercial rollout at this stage.
