Mastercard Unveils AI Payments Network for Microtransactions

Mastercard has launched Agent Pay for Machines, a new AI payments network designed to facilitate high-speed transactions between cards, bank accounts, and stablecoins. The service is part of Mastercard's broader 2025 Agent Pay program, which aims to enable machine-driven commerce through automation and artificial intelligence.

The network supports microtransactions worth fractions of a cent and has already partnered with over 30 firms, including Coinbase, Ripple, Stripe, Cloudflare, OKX, and Solana Foundation. According to Mastercard, the service uses credentialing, permissioning, transaction controls, and multi-rail settlement to ensure trust, controls, and settlement reliability.

Mastercard's Chief Product Officer, Jorn Lambert, stated that Agent Pay for Machines will create conditions for a 'superbloom of AI business models.' The announcement highlights the growing importance of payment companies preparing for AI agents as economic participants, not just recommendation tools. Key to this is trust, which Mastercard believes can be achieved through credentials, spending limits, and auditable payment records.