In April 2025, both Mastercard and Visa unveiled agentic-payment frameworks within days of each other. Mastercard launched Agent Pay, built around new Agentic Tokens. Visa countered with the Trusted Agent Protocol, which has since evolved into the broader Visa Intelligent Commerce program. Both networks then joined Google's AP2 protocol in September 2025. This article compares the two frameworks side by side: architecture, consent, merchant integration, AP2 alignment, and stablecoin posture.
​

The two networks agree on the problem (AI agents need a credentialed way to transact on a cardholder's behalf) but diverge on how identity, tokenization, and merchant trust are wired. The table below captures the key differences as of Q1 2026.

Mastercard's design treats the agent as a delegated tokenholder. Visa's design treats the agent as a constrained merchant intermediary. The split shapes everything downstream: who signs, who is liable, and how the issuer sees the transaction.
​

Agent Pay issues an Agentic Token, a new credential class layered on Mastercard's existing Digital Enablement Service (MDES). The token is bound at provisioning time to a specific agent identity (for example, a Microsoft Copilot instance) and a set of cardholder mandates: spend ceilings, merchant categories, time windows, and recurring-purchase rules. When the agent transacts, the auth message carries the Agentic Token plus an agent-flag indicator. Issuers see a cardholder-approved delegation, not a card-not-present transaction by an unknown actor.
​

Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol takes a different route. Rather than minting a new token class, Visa extends VTS with agent credentials and adds a signed-intent payload to the transaction. The agent presents itself in the acceptance flow with a verifiable credential, the merchant validates it via Visa's directory, and a signed mandate from the cardholder accompanies the auth. In the Intelligent Commerce evolution, Visa formalized an agent-as-merchant-of-record option: the agent platform can settle with the underlying merchant, smoothing dispute handling and refunds.
​

Both networks require cryptographic proof that the cardholder authorized the agent. The difference is when consent is captured and how granular it is.
​

Agent Pay leans on provisioning-time mandates. The cardholder defines rules once when the Agentic Token is created. Subsequent purchases by the agent are validated against those mandates by the issuer in real time. This favors recurring or autonomous purchases (groceries, refills, travel rebooking) where the user does not want a fresh approval per transaction.
​

Trusted Agent Protocol leans on per-transaction signed intents. Each purchase carries a fresh, scoped mandate signed by the cardholder or their wallet. This favors discrete, higher-value purchases where the user wants tighter control. The Intelligent Commerce SDK supports both push-style (user approves in-app) and standing-mandate flows, but the canonical pattern remains per-intent.
​

In practice, large platforms will combine both. AP2 normalizes this with Intent Mandates and Cart Mandates, which we cover in our AP2 protocol explainer.
​

For a merchant, the two networks ask for different work. Mastercard tries to minimize integration lift. Visa introduces new acceptance surface but offers richer agent metadata.
​

With Agent Pay, a merchant that already accepts Mastercard accepts agent transactions by default. The auth message includes an agent indicator, and the merchant can optionally use the Agent Pay SDK to surface agent-friendly checkout (no CAPTCHA, structured product data). Tokenized recurring authorizations use the existing MDES flow. The Mastercard Developers portal lists the Agent Pay API specification alongside the Multi-Token Network.
​

With Trusted Agent, the merchant must validate the agent credential via Visa's directory and inspect the signed intent. Merchants integrating Visa Acceptance Cloud get this in the standard SDK. The agent-as-MoR option lets large agent platforms (think OpenAI, Anthropic) settle with merchants directly, which changes the chargeback path: the agent platform owns first-line disputes, the underlying merchant is shielded from friendly fraud. For full implementation steps see our Agent Pay developer guide.
​

The September 16, 2025 launch of Google's Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) folded both networks into a shared mandate format. Mastercard and Visa each signed on as launch partners, alongside Coinbase, PayPal, American Express, Salesforce, and more than 60 others.
​

AP2 does not replace Agent Pay or Trusted Agent. It standardizes the mandate envelope they consume. An AP2-compliant agent emits a signed Intent Mandate plus a Cart Mandate; downstream, Mastercard maps these to Agentic Token mandates and Visa maps them to Trusted Agent signed-intent payloads. The result: an agent built against AP2 can transact across both networks without bespoke integrations.
​

AP2 also defines an A2A (Agent-to-Agent) extension and a payments extension that supports onchain settlement. This is where the stablecoin track enters.
​

Both networks pair their agent frameworks with stablecoin rails, but with different scope. Mastercard's Multi-Token Network is broader (regulated stablecoins, tokenized deposits, CBDCs). Visa's stablecoin settlement is narrower (USDC and EURC, with explicit Solana and Ethereum support).
​

Mastercard's Multi-Token Network (MTN) went live in 2024 and added Agent Pay hooks in 2025. Agents can settle agentic transactions in regulated stablecoins where supported, with the cardholder's funding source converted at the issuer side. Partners include Standard Chartered, Ondo Finance (tokenized treasuries), and Paxos for USDP and USDG settlement.
​

Visa's Stablecoin Settlement program, expanded in October 2024 and again in 2025, supports USDC and EURC across Solana and Ethereum. In April 2025 Visa announced support for stablecoin-linked card programs in CEMEA and Latin America. For agent transactions, the practical implication is that an Intelligent Commerce flow can settle to a merchant in USDC while the consumer pays in fiat, without changing the auth surface.
​

For routing those settlement flows across chains, Eco Routes provides the cross-chain rails. See CCTP cross-chain transfers for the underlying USDC mechanics.
​

If you are building an agent today, the pragmatic answer is: implement AP2 first, then layer in network-specific extensions. AP2 gives you both networks. Network-specific work then unlocks the deeper features.
​

Choose Agent Pay first if your use case is recurring or autonomous: groceries, subscription replenishment, fleet purchases. Provisioning-time mandates handle the long-tail of small transactions without friction. Choose Trusted Agent first if your use case is high-value, discrete purchases: travel booking, B2B procurement, large retail. Per-intent signed mandates give the user explicit control and the agent-as-MoR option simplifies dispute handling.
​

Identity is the prerequisite for both. Agents must present a verifiable credential the network can resolve. Our agent identity verification guide walks through the credential issuance flow and the directory-lookup steps.
​

Both networks have telegraphed feature parity by mid-2026. Mastercard plans to expose AP2 Intent and Cart mandates natively in the Agentic Token provisioning API. Visa plans to unify Trusted Agent Protocol and Intelligent Commerce under a single SDK, with default AP2 compatibility. Expect convergence on the mandate envelope and continued divergence on the trust model: Mastercard's tokenholder pattern vs Visa's merchant-intermediary pattern.
​

The stablecoin track will accelerate. Both networks now treat regulated stablecoins as a first-class settlement option for agent flows, especially in cross-border and B2B contexts where card interchange and FX spreads are heaviest. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City estimates credit interchange at roughly $0.50 to $0.80 per transaction on average tickets, which agent flows are pressuring downward via stablecoin settlement.
​

This comparison draws on the April 2025 announcements from both networks, the public developer portals, and the AP2 launch partner list published September 16, 2025. Pilot-partner lists were confirmed via the original press releases. Stablecoin support details come from Mastercard's MTN documentation and Visa's stablecoin settlement program disclosures.