A new phase of digital commerce is beginning to take shape as artificial intelligence moves from assisting users to acting on their behalf. Visa’s Agentic Ready initiative aims to prepare the payments ecosystem for a future where AI agents can autonomously search for products, compare options, and complete purchases, all while operating within trusted financial networks.
Visa has officially launched its Agentic Ready program in Singapore, a first-of-its-kind initiative to prepare the global payments ecosystem for AI-driven commerce. The program brings together 13 initial partners, including major banks such as DBS, HSBC Singapore, OCBC, and UOB, as well as FinTech firms like StraitsX, to test a new framework in which AI agents can discover, select, and complete transactions on behalf of human users. This shift toward agentic commerce represents a significant evolution in digital payments, moving from manual user authorisation to automated, autonomous decision-making within a secure financial environment.
The program’s first phase is dedicated to issuer readiness, providing a controlled sandbox for financial institutions to validate agent-initiated payments. To ensure security in this automated landscape, the solution leverages Visa’s existing trust infrastructure, including advanced tokenisation, identity verification, and real-time risk controls. By embedding these protections at the network level, the program aims to maintain consumer control and transparency even as AI agents begin handling the operational details of purchasing and fulfilment.
Adeline Kim, Visa’s Country Manager for Singapore & Brunei, highlighted that Singapore’s status as an innovation hub makes it the ideal pilot market. She noted that consumer readiness for this technology is already high; a recent study commissioned by Visa revealed that nearly 77% of Singapore residents currently use generative AI tools, and 80% already rely on some form of AI assistance when shopping online. Industry participants, including Bank of China Singapore and DBS, emphasised that the initiative is critical to evaluating the security of agent-initiated payments before they move toward widespread public adoption.
The Agentic Ready program is a core pillar of Visa’s broader Intelligent Commerce strategy, which seeks to create scalable, trusted AI payment experiences. As the program expands, more partners are expected to join the network, further refining the protocols for how AI agents interact with merchant platforms and banking rails. This initiative reflects a growing consensus in the financial sector that the next decade of commerce will be defined by autonomous systems that require a new breed of programmable, highly secure payment infrastructure to operate effectively at scale.
What this means for the industry
- AI agents could become the next payment users
Instead of people manually completing transactions, AI systems may soon be able to initiate and execute purchases based on user preferences, budgets, or instructions. - Banks are preparing for machine-to-machine commerce
Major financial institutions such as DBS, HSBC Singapore, OCBC, and UOB joining the program indicates that banks are actively preparing their infrastructure for AI-driven transactions. - Payments security frameworks will need to evolve
Autonomous transactions introduce new risk dynamics, making technologies like tokenisation, identity verification, and real-time fraud monitoring critical to maintaining trust. - Singapore continues to lead fintech experimentation
By launching the pilot in Singapore, Visa is leveraging one of the world’s most advanced digital payment markets to test next-generation commerce models. - Agentic commerce could reshape online shopping
If widely adopted, AI-powered purchasing agents could fundamentally change how consumers interact with merchants, shifting commerce toward automated decision-making rather than manual browsing and checkout.
Photo by CardMapr.nl
