Visa is reimagining the future of digital commerce transactions with the introduction of Intelligent Commerce. This new tool puts consumers in control and helps them make better spending decisions. This technology gives users the ability to manually authorize security checks. To them, and to all of us, they have the final say over how and when their money is spent. Ivana Tranchini, Visa’s head of client engagement for Australia and New Zealand, touted the advantages of this infrastructure. It gives consumers the power to decide their own maximum transaction threshold. For instance, a user could specify, “if it’s below $5,000 I’m happy for you to purchase it.”
This novel method is one piece of a larger effort to prevent fraudulent activity and make in-app transactions safer. Of note, Visa is launching Agent Pay, emphasizing privacy and security with their transactions using “Agentic Tokens.” These tokens produce special ephemeral codes for specific prompts to AI, thus protecting individuals’ data from being shared and misused.
Enhanced Consumer Control
With Intelligent Commerce the consumer is at the center. It gives people power by allowing them to define detailed terms under which their money can be spent. This added degree of control is likely to be extremely appealing to users who favor a hands-on approach for engaging with their finances.
Tranchini highlighted the flexibility of the platform, stating, “It comes down to what the consumer wants. I could decide I want to get an ‘OK’ opportunity just before purchase is made based on all of the different parameters I’ve already put in place, so I can control that.” Consumer choice will continue to play a prominent role in financial transactions. Yet this change gives individuals greater agency and takes power out of the hands of historical banks and financial entities.
You can use personalized card numbers for select purchases. For one thing, you can load a card only with what you’ll spend on streaming services, increasing your spending safety net. As Trevor Long, a technology commentator, noted, “You’ll be able to go, ‘I want a card number that is only used for streaming services’ and boom, you’ll get a special card number.”
Security Innovations with Agentic Tokens
The announcement of Agentic Tokens is a major part of Visa’s efforts to improve transaction security. These tokens use one-of-a-kind codes to each transaction request provided to AI systems, seamlessly shielding an individual’s sensitive information. This cutting-edge approach provides financial institutions and retailers with the ability to have clear visibility of the spender, while significantly reducing fraud risk.
Long emphasized that banks will want to take a very conservative stance with AI agents. That’s because of the very real dangers associated with automated buying. “If I was a financial services minister, I would be very concerned about automated purchasing by AI on a credit card,” he stated. He further expressed apprehension about the possibility of AI increasing consumer debt, saying, “We don’t want AI increasing consumer debt… I think that’s a real concern.”
Today, Visa’s intelligent network evaluates as many as 500 unique data points on every transaction to confirm that it is indeed a secure transaction. This careful oversight does not just guard American consumers—it acts as a shield for our financial institutions. As one representative from Mastercard remarked, “Banks are risk-averse and they’re very keen to stop fraud … not just because they’re protecting the customer but because they’re protecting their own resources.”
Future Developments and Market Outlook
Visa is vigorously piloting its Intelligent Commerce technology in the United States with these use cases, and others. The business is running through multiple scenarios to spot possible problems and come up with the fixes ahead of a companywide rollout. Tranchini noted that trust is crucial for the success of this technology: “We know that the only way to make this technology work is if people trust it, and the only way to make people trust it is if we ensure that they feel protected.”
Learn more about long trevor’s thoughts about the market reaction to AI technology in banking. He predicts that banks will be timid in deploying autonomous AI agents because it would be dangerous for them not to be. “While I do think it will happen, I don’t think they’re going to rush towards it,” he asserted. He pointed to Mastercard’s recent announcements regarding AI-powered technologies as encouraging indicators. That means the competition across this field of innovation might just drive the pace of innovation itself.
AI is sweeping the world faster than a wildfire. Regulatory and public sector experts, such as UNCTAD’s Federico Cohen Freue, anticipate take-up to increase among consumers and businesses especially for commerce-oriented exchanges. Long thinks that Agentic Tokens will most likely be in production within a year. This change is indicative of a larger trend of embedding AI into our AI-powered day-to-day financial lives.
