Mastercard launches Agent Pay for Machines with Coinbase, Ripple support
In brief
- Mastercard launched Agent Pay for Machines, enabling AI agents to autonomously buy services and send payments
- 30+ companies joined including Coinbase, OKX, Polygon, RippleX, and Solana Foundation
- Platform expands Mastercard's Agent Pay program to enable payments between AI agents, software platforms, and machines
AI Agents Now Have Their Own Payment Rails
The platform is designed to let AI systems buy services and send payments on their own, including small transactions that occur in the background. Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert framed the move as foundational for new AI business models.
Agent Pay for Machines will create the conditions for a superbloom of AI business models. Machine payments can make it possible for services to be bought and sold among agents at fundamentally different scales than payments today—very high volumes, very small values, very fast, and at extremely low latency.
Building Momentum in Crypto and Payments
More than 30 companies have joined the effort, including Coinbase, OKX, Polygon, RippleX, Aave Labs, Alchemy, Anchorage Digital, BVNK, MoonPay, Stripe, Cloudflare, and the Solana Foundation. The move reflects Mastercard's broader push into digital assets and blockchain infrastructure.
In March, Mastercard launched a Crypto Partner Program with more than 85 companies, including Binance, Ripple, and PayPal, to develop products combining digital assets with Mastercard's payment network. The same month, the company agreed to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for up to $1.8 billion and joined Solana's enterprise blockchain platform to support stablecoin settlement.
Mastercard also expanded its program for settling transactions using regulated stablecoins, including Circle's USDC and Ripple's RLUSD. These moves position the payments giant at the intersection of AI automation, blockchain infrastructure, and traditional payment rails.
