Visa Launches ‘Agentic Ready’ Programme to Advance Agentic Commerce in Europe

[London, 17 March 2026] – Visa (NYSE: V), a global leader in digital payments, today announced the launch of Visa Agentic Ready, a new global programme, designed to support the payments ecosystem as it prepares for a new era of agentic commerce. Launching first in Europe, including the UK, this builds on Visa Intelligent Commerce - Visa’s strategic framework for enabling trusted, AI-driven commerce experiences at scale.

In its first phase, Visa Agentic Ready focuses on issuer readiness, providing issuing partners with a structured pathway to test and validate agent-initiated transactions, working in close partnership with Visa and selected merchants to explore how these transactions could operate securely, at scale, in controlled production environments.

Through the programme, participating issuers will gain firsthand experience of how agentic commerce platforms can securely initiate and complete transactions on behalf of consumers, while maintaining the trust, control and protections that underpin the Visa network.

“As AI agents increasingly shape how people shop and buy, payments need to keep up,” said Mathieu Altwegg, Head of Product & Solutions, Visa Europe. “Visa Agentic Ready will initially help European issuers prepare for secure, scalable agent‑initiated payments, built on infrastructure people already trust.”

Bespoke Design for Europe, Built on Existing Foundations

While Visa Agentic Ready is a global programme, it is launching first in Europe, including the UK, as part of a phased rollout. Europe offers a strong environment for testing and collaboration, with high adoption of tokenisation, passkeys and advanced authentication – capabilities that are also well established across Visa’s global network.

This initial phase focuses on testing how agent-initiated payments work in real issuer environments, helping ensure they remain secure, reliable and easy to run at scale.

Visa Agentic Ready is powered by Visa’s trust layer, bringing together tokens, identity, risk and controls to examine how trusted agent‑initiated payments could be enabled across channels and use cases. The work is helping to inform how issuers can extend familiar protections into future AI‑driven experiences, using tokenisation and biometric authentication so that agent‑initiated payments are clearly tied to a real person, with consent and control at key moments.

From Readiness to Real‑World Scale

Bringing agentic commerce to life at scale requires coordination across the payments ecosystem, and Visa is excited to have already enrolled a number of its clients into the Agentic Ready programme.

Through controlled, production-grade testing with selected merchants, the programme enables participants to validate how agent-initiated payments operate in real world environments, helping build confidence as these new experiences move from concept to reality.

This work supports Visa’s broader vision for intelligent, programmable commerce, where trusted credentials and network capabilities enable payments to respond securely and flexibly to consumer intent, context and controls. As more of the shopping journey becomes automated, this helps ensure agents can act seamlessly on a consumer’s behalf - while keeping people firmly in control.

Early issuing partners engaging in the Visa Agentic Ready programme include Alpha Bank, Banca Transilvania, Bank Leumi, Bank of Cyprus, Bank of Valletta, Barclays, CAL, Commerzbank, Cornèrcard, DZ Bank, Erste Bank Oesterreich as part of Erste Group, Eurobank Limited, HSBC UK, MAX, Millennium BCP, Nationwide Building Society, Nexi Group, Piraeus Bank, Raiffeisen Bank International, Revolut, Banco Santander with additional partners expected to join as the programme expands.

Agentic Ready builds on traction with partners in North America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America – to make AI commerce a reality for people and businesses across the globe.

Partner Quotes

• Mr. Panagiotis Divriotis, Director Cards & Personal Loans, Alpha Bank:“Alpha Bank is partnering with Visa on the Agentic Ready Program to enhance how customers experience transactions, making them faster, smarter and more secure. This marks another step in the bank’s investment in cutting-edge technology and its commitment to delivering real value to customers.”
  
• Oana Ilaş, Deputy CEO, Retail Banking, Banca Transilvania: “At Banca Transilvania, we’re proud to join Visa’s Agentic Ready programme and help shape the future of intelligent, secure payments. As AI‑driven commerce accelerates, our focus is on ensuring consumers and businesses benefit from seamless, trusted and scalable payment experiences. Partnering with Visa and leading European merchants allows us to innovate responsibly and bring the next generation of agent‑initiated transactions to life.”
  
• Amir Rosen, Chief AI Officer, Bank Leumi: "Agentic commerce is moving quickly from concept to reality. By working with Visa in the Agentic Ready programme, Bank Leumi is helping ensure that AI driven payments evolve in a way that combines innovation with the trust and security customers expect from the financial system."
  
• Demetris K. Nicolaou, Chief Digital Officer, Bank of Cyprus: “Bank of Cyprus is proud to collaborate with VISA on the design and testing of an Agentic Payments framework. As a digital payments leader, Bank of Cyprus continues to focus on delivering seamless experiences for customers across local and international payments.”
  
• Yaron Tiktin Deputy CEO and Head of Consumer Division, Cal:“In an era where AI is transforming the way consumers search for, evaluate, and compare services and products, Agentic AI is expected to reshape how they make credit card payments. Cal’s participation in Visa’s Agentic Ready program enables a smarter, more secure, and more seamless payment experience, while strengthening trust in digital payment systems. This marks another step in building a reliable and advanced infrastructure for the next generation of digital commerce.”
  
• Oliver Haibt, Divisional Board Member, Commerzbank: “Agentic Commerce is an important milestone in the evolution of digital commerce. At Commerzbank, we are proud to be working together with Visa on this innovation.”
  
• Alessandro Seralvo, Chief Executive Officer, Cornèrcard: “Supporting this next-generation Visa initiative reflects our ambition to remain at the forefront of innovation and to continuously enhance the payment experience for our cardholders.”
  
  
• Dr. Imke Jacob, General Executive Manager, DZ BANK AG: “Agentic Commerce is significantly changing the way people pay. By collaborating with Visa we want to help shape this process by embracing innovations that create smarter, more seamless interactions for our customers.”
  
• Max Clary und Aldringen, Chief Retail Officer, Erste Bank Oesterreich: “As Austria’s innovation leader, we focus on bringing safe, meaningful, modern solutions to our clients to enhance their everyday banking experience. Agentic Commerce is a promising next step in digital shopping, and we see strong potential in how it can support the evolving expectations of our clients in an increasingly digital world.”
  
• Andrew Rankin, Chief Payments Officer, HSBC UK:“We are pleased to be working with Visa to design and test a secure, reliable and fast new agentic payments ecosystem. As a leader in digital payments, HSBC UK is committed to increasing resilience and creating better experiences for our customers for both domestic and cross-border payments.”
  
• Sagit Dotan, CEO, Max:“This is a major step for the industry, and we’re excited to be part of this pilot. MAX is partnering with Visa on the Agentic Ready Program to deliver more value, more simplicity and more innovation to our customers. We’ve entered a new era where Agentic Commerce is reshaping how people choose and transact, and together with Visa we’re creating the next generation of smart, effortless, and empowering customer experiences.”
  
• Tom Riley, Director of Group Retail Products, Nationwide: “We’re delighted to join Visa’s Agentic Ready Program. This collaboration gives us the opportunity to innovate, explore and test new technologies in a safe and controlled environment, helping us understand how they could enhance the way our customers manage their money. Customer payments will continue as normal throughout these trials. At with all innovation, our priority is that it helps customers feel more confident, informed and in control.”
  
• Christian Segersven, Chief Business Officer, Issuing Solutions, Nexi Group:“We have entered a new era in which Artificial Intelligence has the potential to transform the payments ecosystem, creating significant opportunities to deliver greater customer value. At the same time, rising complexity increases pressure on banks and corporates and accelerates demand for advanced, agentic-ready issuing solutions. Nexi remains committed to leading payment innovation and shaping the future of agentic payments in Europe. Our partnership with Visa reinforces this strategy and strengthens our leadership in advancing digital commerce.”
  
• Magda Soureli, Head of Retail Payments, Piraeus Bank: "We are thrilled to be part of this Visa initiative, which signals a new era for Piraeus customers’ payment experience".
  
• Rom Jackson, Head of Product (Card Payments), Revolut: “As AI evolves into an active shopping tool, the underlying payment infrastructure must keep pace. By collaborating with Visa on Agentic commerce, we are ensuring that both humans and AI Agents can make a secure, instant, and safe payment with the Revolut Visa card. We are proud to work alongside Visa to enable this, ensuring our customers can leverage the full power of AI with the same world-class security they expect.”
  
• Matías Sánchez, global head of Cards and Digital Solutions, Banco Santander:“This is a major step in making AI-assisted shopping practical. By testing a live transaction, we demonstrated how these technologies act as a key enabler of secure, interoperable agentic commerce within a connected payments ecosystem, linking banks, networks and merchants, while preserving consumer protections and controls. As part of this initiative, Banco Santander demonstrated a real-world use case by purchasing a book with a Santander España Visa card, showcasing the practical application of agent-enabled commerce."

Those interested in participating in the Visa Agentic Ready programme can contact their Visa account executive for more information.

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, sellers, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.