As AI moves beyond chatbots into autonomous digital assistants capable of making purchases on behalf of consumers, the payments industry is preparing for a fundamental shift in how transactions are authorised and executed. Thredd’s entry into the Visa Agentic Ready program positions European issuers to support AI agent-driven payments using existing card infrastructure rather than building entirely new payment systems. By combining tokenisation, biometric authentication and AI-specific fraud controls, the initiative lays the groundwork for secure machine-to-machine commerce while allowing banks and fintechs to adopt agentic payments with minimal disruption.
Leading artificial intelligence-first issuer processing platform Thredd has officially joined the Visa Agentic Ready program. The strategic alliance establishes a direct compliance and integration bridge for European financial institutions, enabling them to support autonomous, AI-driven payments without undergoing costly or time-consuming overhauls of their underlying transaction infrastructure. Virtual card and consumer payments provider Zilch will serve as one of the premier launch partners on the platform, preparing to roll out dedicated agent-initiated payment utilities to its active consumer base across Europe.
The development targets the rapid rise of agentic commerce, an emerging model of digital trade where autonomous software agents execute online purchasing tasks directly on behalf of human account holders. Unlike standard online checkout pathways that rely on human-in-the-loop interactions such as typing credit card numbers or passing SMS-based multi-factor authentication checks, agentic commerce requires programmatic machine-to-machine trust validation. While foundational payment concepts like clear cardholder consent, fraud evaluation, and issuer approval remain structurally unchanged, the operational integration lies in how the payment network authenticates and limits a non-human agent at the point of sale.
To enable this capability immediately, Thredd’s day-one network readiness relies entirely on extending the existing digital security layers that issuers are already accustomed to running. This foundational stack integrates scheme tokenisation via the Visa Token Service, ensuring that an AI shopping assistant only ever handles secure digital tokens rather than the actual, sensitive card credentials. These cryptographic tokens are securely bound to trusted consumer hardware devices. To finalise a transaction, the system deploys Visa Payment Passkeys, enabling consumers to confirm their purchase intent and authorise the payment instantly through secure biometric verification like a fingerprint or facial scan.
Building upon these established security measures, Thredd is actively designing a suite of specialised, agent-centric capabilities to address the unique transactional behaviours of AI software. Traditional risk systems are optimised to evaluate human actions, often triggering false fraud alerts when faced with automated high-frequency actions. To address this, Thredd is engineering specialised agent tokenisation protocols that apply highly customised permissions, time-bound budgets, and restricted merchant categories directly to the agent’s virtual profile. Additionally, the platform is launching advanced agent fraud monitoring engines specifically designed to detect machine-native anomalies, including execution drift, programmatic errors, and unusual transaction velocity.
Philip Belamant, CEO of Zilch, noted that agentic commerce represents a major structural shift in global payment dynamics, making it vital to establish the correct infrastructure right from the start. Belamant emphasised that collaborating with Thredd and Visa ensures that as automated assistants become a routine part of how consumers search and shop, the primary focus remains on giving customers greater control and safety over their spending. Jim McCarthy, CEO of Thredd, added that as AI agents emerge as active participants in the transaction journey, issuers require a reliable route to adopt these innovations quickly without compromising their operational integrity, creating a secure bridge for the next era of digital commerce.
What it means for the industry
- Agentic commerce moves closer to reality. Banks and payment providers can begin supporting AI-powered purchasing assistants without replacing their existing card processing infrastructure.
- Existing payment rails are being adapted rather than replaced. Technologies such as network tokenisation, passkeys and virtual cards provide a practical foundation for AI-driven payments.
- Fraud prevention is evolving for autonomous transactions. Traditional fraud models designed for human behaviour will increasingly be complemented by AI-specific monitoring capable of detecting machine-driven anomalies.
- Financial institutions can accelerate AI adoption with lower implementation risk. Programmes such as Visa Agentic Ready reduce integration complexity and enable issuers to introduce AI payment capabilities more quickly.
- The competitive focus shifts from payments to intelligent commerce. As AI agents become responsible for searching, comparing and completing purchases, banks, processors and payment networks will compete on trust, security and the ability to safely support autonomous financial decisions.
Image Source: Pexels.com
