Mastercard has completed Australia’s first fully authenticated agentic transactions on its network, marking a significant step in the rollout of AI-powered commerce and the expansion of its global Agent Pay program across Asia Pacific.
Agentic commerce, in which AI-powered agents act on behalf of consumers to shop, manage subscriptions and complete everyday transactions, is expected to play a major role in the future of payments. Research suggests agentic commerce could influence up to 55 per cent of Australian consumer transactions by 2030, representing spending of as much as A$670 billion.
By enabling authenticated agent-led payments, Mastercard’s Agent Pay framework formally brings AI agents into the payment flow as visible and governed participants. Mastercard said this approach ensures agentic transactions are secure, transparent and trusted, with all parties able to recognise when an AI agent is acting on a customer’s behalf.
Australia’s first Agent Pay transaction involved a Commonwealth Bank of Australia–issued debit card used to purchase cinema tickets from Event Cinemas. The transaction was fully authorised with cardholder consent, and the issuer, acquirer and merchant were all able to see that an AI agent conducted the purchase. In a second demonstration, a Westpac-issued credit card was used to book accommodation in Thredbo, highlighting how agentic payments could support travel and hospitality use cases.
Both transactions were processed through IPSI and completed using Maincode’s sovereign large language model, Matilda, demonstrating the flexibility of Mastercard’s agentic commerce framework across different payment environments and AI platforms.
Mastercard said its Agent Pay framework is designed to enable interoperability between issuers, acquirers and merchants by adhering to industry standards. This allows consumers and businesses to benefit from consistent and trusted agent-powered experiences regardless of platform or provider.
Paul Monnington, Division President for Australasia at Mastercard, said agentic commerce represents one of the most significant shifts in consumer behaviour in decades. He said Mastercard’s role is to ensure this future is built on the same foundations of trust, security and transparency that Australians expect from card payments.
Looking ahead, Mastercard is accelerating its agentic commerce strategy across Australasia and the wider Asia Pacific region. Initiatives include the establishment of a regional AI Centre of Excellence, deeper partnerships with leading large language model providers, and the deployment of dedicated agentic commerce teams to support financial institutions and merchants. A specialised team will be based at Mastercard’s Sydney Tech Hub.
Consumer adoption of AI-assisted shopping is already gathering pace in Australia, with nearly half of Australians having used AI tools to help them shop online. However, Mastercard noted that trust remains critical, with strong concerns around privacy and security and many consumers saying they will only use AI shopping services from brands they already trust.
Mastercard said transparency is central to the success of agentic commerce. By recognising and authenticating AI agents within the payment flow, Agent Pay enables stronger fraud detection, clearer dispute resolution and more effective risk management, setting a new benchmark for security and reliability in AI-driven transactions.
The Australian milestone follows earlier Agent Pay launches in the United States and pilot programs in the United Arab Emirates and Latin America, forming part of Mastercard’s broader global commitment to responsible innovation and collaboration across the payments ecosystem.
