Daily News 19

Tag: Agentic commerce

  • Celo Adds Local Currency Payments for AI Agents

    Celo Adds Local Currency Payments for AI Agents

    Key Highlights

    • Celo Core Co. launched a native x402 facilitator on July 16, enabling AI agents to transact using Ripio’s wARS, wBRL, and wCOP tokens denominated in Argentine pesos, Brazilian reais, and Colombian pesos.
    • The update eliminates the need for AI agents to convert local currencies into dollar-based stablecoins, reducing foreign exchange exposure for users who delegate transaction authority to autonomous agents.
    • Celo plans to extend support to additional Latin American currencies including Mexican pesos (wMXN), Chilean pesos (wCLP), and Peruvian sol (wPEN), building on a network that has processed over 1.4 billion transactions since its 2020 mainnet launch.

    Celo Integrates Local Currency Payments for Autonomous AI Agents

    Celo Core Co., the core development team behind the Celo blockchain, has deployed a native x402 payment facilitator that allows artificial intelligence agents operating on the network to settle transactions in local Latin American currencies. Announced on July 16, the integration leverages Ripio’s wrapped fiat tokens—wARS for the Argentine peso, wBRL for the Brazilian real, and wCOP for the Colombian peso—enabling AI agents to make payments, purchase data, and access APIs without converting to dollar-pegged stablecoins.

    Eliminating Foreign Exchange Friction for Agentic Commerce

    The architectural shift addresses a structural limitation in current agentic payment flows. Previously, AI agents acting on behalf of users in Latin America were forced to route payments through USD-denominated stablecoins, introducing foreign exchange spreads, conversion latency, and custody risk. By supporting Ripio’s wFIAT suite directly, Celo allows agents to operate in the same monetary unit as their human principals. This parity simplifies accounting, preserves purchasing power, and reduces the operational overhead for developers building agent-driven commerce, remittance, and service applications across the region.

    Ripio’s Regulated Token Infrastructure Underpins the Expansion

    Ripio, a licensed digital asset platform operating across Latin America, issues the wFIAT token family used in the integration. Each token is fully backed by reserves held in the corresponding sovereign currency, including the Argentine peso, Brazilian real, Mexican peso, Colombian peso, Chilean peso, and Peruvian sol. The company’s regulatory compliance and local banking relationships provide the off-ramp credibility necessary for mainstream adoption. With the x402 facilitator now live, businesses and developers on Celo can price services, data feeds, and API calls in local currency terms, aligning revenue models with end-user economics.

    Why This Matters

    The convergence of AI agent frameworks and blockchain payment rails is accelerating, but currency localization remains an underdeveloped layer. Most agentic payment prototypes assume a dollarized world, which mismatches the reality of emerging markets where local currency volatility and banking access shape user behavior. Celo’s x402 implementation, combined with Ripio’s regulated fiat tokens, creates a template for regionally native agent economies. The roadmap to add wMXN, wCLP, and wPEN signals intent to cover the major Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking markets in Latin America. With over 1.4 billion transactions processed since 2020—spanning payments, remittances, commerce, and DeFi—Celo’s transaction throughput provides a proven base for scaling agent-driven activity without the congestion risks seen on higher-fee networks.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the x402 facilitator and how does it work with AI agents?

    The x402 facilitator is a native payment protocol on Celo that enables HTTP 402 “Payment Required” responses to be settled programmatically. AI agents can automatically fulfill payment challenges for API access, data, or services using supported tokens—in this case, Ripio’s wARS, wBRL, and wCOP—without human intervention or currency conversion.

    Which currencies are currently supported and what is coming next?

    As of the July 16 launch, the x402 facilitator supports Argentine peso (wARS), Brazilian real (wBRL), and Colombian peso (wCOP) via Ripio’s wrapped tokens. Celo has announced plans to add Mexican peso (wMXN), Chilean peso (wCLP), and Peruvian sol (wPEN) in future updates.

    Why does local currency support matter for AI agents in Latin America?

    It removes the need for agents to convert local funds into dollar stablecoins before transacting, eliminating foreign exchange fees, slippage, and settlement delay. Users can delegate spending authority to agents in their native currency, while merchants and developers can price goods and services in the same unit of account their customers use daily.

  • Ant International Joins Visa, Mastercard to Develop AI Agent Payment Standards

    Ant International Joins Visa, Mastercard to Develop AI Agent Payment Standards

    Ant International has partnered with Visa and Mastercard to develop common standards for identifying and monitoring AI agents as autonomous software takes on a larger role in global payments. The collaboration aims to create an interoperable “Know Your Agent” framework that lets merchants and payment providers verify which AI agents are behind transactions and whether they are authorized to act.

    Framework addresses projected growth in agentic commerce

    The initiative arrives as payment companies prepare for AI systems that can search for products, place orders, and make payments for consumers and businesses. Ant cited McKinsey projections that AI agents could handle between $3 trillion and $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.

    Jiang-Ming Yang, chief innovation officer at Ant International, emphasized that safeguards will be essential as agents gain more authority over financial transactions because AI systems can produce incorrect information or take actions users did not intend.

    “Trust is the foundation of the AI transformation,” Yang told CNBC.

    Interoperable identity system reduces friction

    Under the collaboration, Ant International, Visa, and Mastercard plan to establish common methods for linking an AI agent to a valid entity, evaluating its behavior, and monitoring its activity. The companies are focusing on interoperability between their separate systems so an agent that has already established its identity with one payment provider would not necessarily have to repeat the process with another.

    “If [an] agent registers with Ant, they don’t need to register again with Visa, Mastercard,” Yang said.

    Such a system would give merchants and payment processors a consistent way to determine which software agent is requesting a transaction and the party on whose behalf it is operating.

    Pablo Fourez, chief digital officer at Mastercard, said interoperability between Know Your Agent frameworks will be needed if agentic commerce is to operate across different platforms.

    “Interoperability across Know-Your-Agent frameworks is essential to making agentic commerce work at scale,” Fourez said, stressing the need for merchants and payment companies to consistently identify AI agents they can trust.

    Each company brings existing agent payment infrastructure

    Each of the three companies has spent the past year developing its own technology for AI-led payments. Mastercard on Wednesday launched Agent Connect, a system that gives merchants a single integration for product discovery, cart creation, and customer-approved payments across AI shopping platforms.

    Agent Connect works with Mastercard Agent Pay, which records customer authority through tokenized permissions when an AI system is allowed to make a purchase. Merchants and payment providers can use the permission to determine whether the transaction falls within instructions provided by the customer.

    Visa builds autonomous payment stack

    Visa has been developing a separate stack for autonomous payments. In April, the company introduced Intelligent Commerce Connect, bringing payment initiation, tokenization, authentication, and spending controls into infrastructure designed for AI agents.

    The system allows agents to search for products and complete transactions on behalf of consumers while using Visa’s existing payment network and security tools. Visa expanded that work in June with new AI and stablecoin capabilities, including a partnership with OpenAI to support payments within agentic commerce experiences. Its stablecoin settlement activity had reached a $7 billion annualized run rate at the time, crypto.news previously reported.

    Mastercard targets machine-to-machine transactions

    Mastercard has taken a similar route through Agent Pay for Machines. The company unveiled the payment network in June with support from more than 30 payment, blockchain, and technology companies, including Ripple, Coinbase, Stripe, Adyen, and the Solana Foundation.

    The network was built for transactions initiated by autonomous software, including high-volume and low-value payments. Users can set spending limits, authorization requirements, and settlement conditions, while transactions can run through conventional payment networks or stablecoin rails.

    Both card companies have consequently been developing controls for a payment environment in which the person buying a product may not directly interact with the merchant’s checkout page.

    Ant International adds digital wallet scale

    Ant International gives the collaboration access to another part of the global payments market through Alipay+, its cross-border payment and digitalization platform. More than 50 electronic wallets have partnered with Ant International through Alipay+, according to the company. Such wallets are widely used in markets where consumers frequently rely on mobile payment systems instead of physical credit or debit cards.

    Digital wallets represented 56% of global e-commerce transaction value and 33% of point-of-sale value in 2025, according to Worldpay data cited by the companies. Total spending through the payment method exceeded $13 trillion.

    Card networks and digital wallets have become increasingly connected as wallets add support for cards and other funding sources, giving AI payment systems multiple routes through which transactions could eventually be completed.

    Stablecoins emerge as machine payment rail

    Visa has already been testing combinations of AI payments and blockchain-based settlement. Wirex joined Visa’s Agentic Ready program in June to test AI agents making stablecoin payments, initially focusing on software subscriptions, marketing spending, and procurement.

    The tests were designed to determine how autonomous software could initiate financial transactions while preserving security controls and user authority.

    Stablecoins have become another part of the infrastructure being developed for machine-led transactions. Visa and Artemis said in July that stablecoins could be suited to low-value machine-to-machine payments, while traditional cards could continue handling consumer purchases.

    Alipay deploys consumer-facing AI ordering

    Ant’s work on payment standards is arriving as its former parent company’s Alipay platform begins putting AI-assisted purchasing tools in front of consumers. Ant International separated from Hangzhou-based Ant Group nearly three years ago. Ant Group operates Alipay, the mobile payment service widely used in mainland China.

    Alipay said Wednesday that users can now create recurring Starbucks requests through one of its AI features.

    “buy me a Starbucks iced Americano at 10 a.m. every day,” according to the announcement. The system can then place the requested order at the scheduled time before asking the customer to complete payment.

    The arrangement keeps the payment approval with the user even though the AI feature handles the recurring order. Alipay users can make recurring ride-hailing requests from Didi through the same AI tool, extending the automated system from retail purchases to transportation services.