Orbit: Card, wallet and commerce programs
Visa Intelligent Commerce
Visa's program and API platform for agent-initiated card payments (tokenized credentials for agents, passkey-confirmed payment instructions and transaction signals back to Visa), with the Trusted Agent Protocol as one component.
- Steward
- Visa (company)
- Status
- Mixed
- Primary source
- Find and Buy with AI: Visa Unveils New Era of Commerce (external link)
What it is
(VIC) is the commercial layer around Visa’s protocols. Visa unveiled it on 2025-04-30 under the heading “Find and Buy with AI”, pitching AI-ready cards: tokenized Visa credentials that a user can hand to an AI agent without exposing the card number. Source [1]
A user enrolls a card, an agent creates a that the user confirms (Visa Payment are the confirmation method Visa names in Europe), and the agent then requests credentials for that instruction. Source [2, 3] Visa’s open-source visa/ai toolkit shows the shape of the API: enrollment through POST /vacp/v1/cards, then create, update, cancel, and confirmation calls under /vacp/v1/instructions. The confirmation call reports the outcome back to Visa as a “signal” that Visa says helps resolve disputes. Source [2, 4]
TAP inside VIC
Visa TAP sits inside . is the signature an uses to identify itself to a merchant website; VIC supplies the onboarding of agents, the tokens and the payment instructions that the TAP refers to. The TAP specification says a public key associated with Visa implies that the agent takes part in, and complies with, the VIC program requirements. A merchant that verifies TAP is therefore relying on Visa’s agent onboarding, which is not public. Source [5, 6]
Programs around the API
- Agentic Ready prepares issuers and merchants to accept transactions. It launched in Europe on 2026-03-17 with 21 named early issuers, and Visa announced a global expansion on 2026-04-29. Source [3, 7] On 2026-07-02 Visa said 31 European issuers had completed live agent purchases with merchants such as lastminute.com, and that every Agentic Ready transaction in Europe used Visa Payment , supporting . Source [8]
- (pilot, announced 2026-04-08) is an on-ramp for businesses that agent payments arriving through , MPP, ACP or UCP, and can handle orchestration and PCI compliance for enablers. Source [9]
- and Agent Score (announced 2026-06-10): the directory is described as a list of Visa-verified agents and merchants, and Agent Score rates how ready a merchant site is for agents (it scores sites, not agents). The same release calls the directory an “Agentic Registry” in its subheadline. No public list or endpoint was found. Source [10]
Status
Separate what is live from what is announced. Live: the sandbox API (free in sandbox, production fees by contact), the visa/ai toolkit (MIT, last commit 2026-09-30), Agentic Ready transactions in Europe, and partner products such as Crossmint’s Agentic Cards API (2026-06-02). Source [2, 8, 11, 12] Visa reported “hundreds” of agent-initiated transactions with partners by 2025-12-18. Source [13] Pilot or announced: , the and Score. Source [9, 10]
No agent-specific liability shift, interchange rate or rule had been published as of 2026-10-11. Visa’s reference agent (visa/vic-reference-agent) carries an evaluation-only license despite being described as open source. Source [14]
How it relates to the eight
Visa extends beyond its own protocol. It authored the card payment method for MPP (draft-card-charge-00, where headers are optional) and published a card spec and mpp-card SDK built on VIC and TAP on 2026-03-18. Source [15, 16] It is a Premier member of the x402 Foundation, and the TAP release says Visa is collaborating with Coinbase on x402 interoperability. Source [6, 17] Visa is listed as a UCP endorser and is a founding validator of Circle’s Arc chain. Source [18, 19] Mastercard’s counterpart program is Agent Pay; both networks use the phrase “” for different constructs.
Status history
- 2025-04-30: unveiled (“Find and Buy with AI”). Source [1]
- 2025-10-14: launched as part of VIC, developed with Cloudflare. Source [6]
- 2025-12-18: Visa reports hundreds of agent-initiated transactions with partners. Source [13]
- 2026-03-17: Agentic Ready launched in Europe (21 early issuers). Source [3]
- 2026-03-18: Visa card spec and SDK for MPP. Source [16]
- 2026-04-08: announced (pilot). Source [9]
- 2026-04-29: Agentic Ready global expansion. Source [7]
- 2026-06-10: and Score announced. Source [10]
- 2026-07-02: 31 European issuers complete live agent purchases. Source [8]
Relations at a glance
| Protocol | Relation | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Visa Trusted Agent Protocol | Same steward | TAP is the agent identity component of Visa Intelligent Commerce; a Visa-associated key implies participation in the program. |
| Stripe MPP (Machine Payments Protocol) | Complements | Visa authored the MPP card payment method, and Intelligent Commerce Connect accepts MPP payments. |
| Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) | Compatible with | Intelligent Commerce Connect accepts ACP payments; no wire binding is published. |
| UCP | Compatible with | Visa is a listed UCP endorser, and Intelligent Commerce Connect accepts UCP. |
| x402 | Compatible with | Visa is an x402 Foundation Premier member; the TAP release says Visa is collaborating with Coinbase on x402 interoperability. |
| Mastercard Agent Pay | Competes with | Rival network program for agent card payments with its own token and directory. |
Sources
- Find and Buy with AI: Visa Unveils New Era of Commerce (external link)
- Visa Intelligent Commerce overview (Visa Developer Center) (external link)
- Visa launches Agentic Ready programme to advance agentic commerce in Europe (external link)
- visa/ai VIC API client (vic-client.ts) (external link)
- Trusted Agent Protocol merchant specifications (external link)
- Visa Introduces Trusted Agent Protocol: An Ecosystem-Led Framework for AI Commerce (external link)
- Visa Announces Global Expansion of Agentic Ready Program (external link)
- Visa and Banks Across Europe Reach the Next Phase of Agentic Commerce, Unlocking Secure Access to Merchants (external link)
- Visa Opens the Door to AI-Driven Shopping for Businesses Worldwide (Intelligent Commerce Connect) (external link)
- Visa Announces New AI, Stablecoin and Token Innovations to Power Intelligent, Programmable Commerce at Visa Payments Forum (external link)
- visa/ai (formerly visa/mcp) repository: VIC MCP and API clients, vic-agent demo, skills (external link)
- Crossmint Launches Agentic Cards API Using Visa Intelligent Commerce and Basis Theory (external link)
- Visa and Partners Complete Secure AI Transactions, Setting the Stage for Mainstream Adoption in 2026 (external link)
- visa/vic-reference-agent GitHub page and LICENSE.md (external link)
- Card Network Charge Intent for HTTP Payment Authentication (draft-card-charge-00) (external link)
- Visa introduces card specification and SDK for Machine Payments Protocol (external link)
- Linux Foundation Announces Operational Launch of x402 Foundation (external link)
- Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) home page (external link)
- Circle Launches Arc Mainnet, an Economic Operating System for the Internet (external link)