Mastercard opened early access to Agent Pay for Machines, which lets AI agents pay for digital services via x402, after pilots with Coinbase, Base and BVNK.
Key Facts
Mastercard opened Agent Pay for Machines Early Access, giving developers the first version of its buyer- and seller-side APIs, a toolkit, a sandbox and developer documentation, the company said on Tuesday.
The system builds on x402 and was piloted end to end with Cloudflare, Ant International, AIsa, Base, BVNK, Coinbase and Hype.
Coinbase Developer Platform supplies the wallet infrastructure used to fund the agent, Base provides on-chain settlement and BVNK acts as the agent wallet, handling payment and settlement in fiat or stablecoins, according to Mastercard.
Mastercard has opened early access to Agent Pay for Machines, a system that lets AI agents pay for digital services on behalf of businesses, after testing it with Coinbase, Base, payments firm BVNK and others.
The early access program gives developers the first version of Mastercard's buyer- and seller-side APIs, along with a toolkit, sandbox and documentation, the company said in a news brief on Tuesday. Mastercard demonstrated the system at Cloudflare's Connect conference.
"AI agents can find what they need. Now they can pay for it, too," Mastercard wrote on X.
Mastercard first introduced Agent Pay for Machines in June with more than 30 partners.
How Agent Pay for Machines Uses x402 and Base
The system builds on x402, an open protocol that lets online services request payment.
When an agent working within a spending limit set by a business asks for a service, the provider replies with a "402 Payment Required" message, and the agent creates a digitally signed payment voucher, which Mastercard described as "a secure promise to pay within its approved limit."
Those exchanges happen off-chain, and providers can combine vouchers and redeem them later. "Authorize once. Transact many times. Guarantee payment now. Settle later," the company wrote.
Coinbase Developer Platform provides the wallet infrastructure that funds the agent, while Base provides the on-chain settlement network, according to Mastercard. BVNK acts as the agent wallet, using Mastercard's Global Money Platform to handle payment and settlement on both sides in fiat or stablecoins, so sellers can be paid in their preferred currency, token or rail.
Mastercard Demo Runs Nine Payments on One Budget
In a demo with marketing agency Hype, an agent planning a protein bar campaign bought research from AIsa and paid for images through Cloudflare's AI Gateway. Mastercard summed it up as "Nine payments. Two independent merchants. One approved budget."
"Payments aren't the hard part. Authority is," the company said.
The launch follows a run of stablecoin announcements from Mastercard. On Monday it debuted a stablecoin security tool to flag fraud and sanctions risk, days after it launched a stablecoin platform with BVNK, CoinMarketCap reported.
AI agents made more than 138 million payments through x402 on Base in the 12 months through July, according to a Chainalysis report published last week.
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