AI agents to enter Mastercard’s Caribbean payments space

Mastercard has announced that its agentic payments programme, designed to allow authorised artificial-intelligence (AI) agents to conduct transactions securely, will reach Latin America and the Caribbean by February 2026.

The initiative, branded Agent Pay, promises secure, transparent and scalable AI-driven transactions across Mastercard’s network. It allows cardholders to authorise their AI assistant with a digital wallet to pay bills, shop online or manage subscriptions. The system relies on agentic tokens, which build on established tokenisation methods such as mobile contactless payments, secure card-on-file and Mastercard Payment Passkeys.

The announcement of Agent Pay’s regional entry was made at Mastercard’s Innovation Forum in Miami, a recent three-day gathering highlighting technologies reshaping financial services, with a focus on AI, cybersecurity and the digitalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Mark Barnett, Mastercard’s vice-president for SMEs, argued that AI could prove transformative for smaller firms.

“AI is going to disproportionately benefit small businesses. They spend so much time on administration and payments – tasks that do not excite them,” he said.

Dalton Fowles, Mastercard’s country manager for Jamaica, echoed Barnett’s sentiment, stressing that agentic AI would be particularly valuable for micro-businesses with an online presence.

“The world is moving to agentic AIs where people will be able to shop online. For micro-businesses selling digitally, these tools will become part of our wider product offering,” he said. AI, he added, could also support bankers in assessing credit risk.

Fowles acknowledged that adoption would take time.

“It’s a huge shift. You will have your early adopters, and once people recognise the value, more will come on board. But it will not happen overnight,” he said.

Launched globally in October 2025, Agent Pay requires AI agents to be registered and verified before they can transact on Mastercard’s network. Merchants of all sizes will be able to accept tokenised payments from trusted agents.

Existing layers of security

Pablo Fourez, Mastercard’s chief digital officer, emphasised that Agent Pay builds on existing layers of security.

“Digital tokenisation, biometric authentication and simplified checkout services are key ingredients that bring more security, visibility and transparency to payments. Those benefits accrue in agentic commerce,” he explained.

Lauding the “democratic” nature of agentic commerce, Fourez said SMEs can also benefit greatly.

“Everybody has access to, even individuals have access to these technologies and are using it everyday so these SMEs can have access to it, and it can have as big benefits as a large corporation, so that’s every exciting,” he said.

He noted too that SMEs that do businesses on large e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Etsy could be front runner beneficiaries.

Mastercard is partnering with Microsoft to integrate its payment solutions with Microsoft’s AI technologies, including Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot Studio. Agent Pay’s enabling partners include fintechs, banks and payment processors across Latin and Central America – among them Bemobi, Davivienda, Evertec, Getnet, Inti, MagaluPay and Yuno. Checkout.com, headquartered in the UK, will also be among the first to help scale AI-powered payments in the region.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com