Worldline, ING, and Visa Successfully Execute Europe's First AI-Driven Autonomous Payment

An AI Agent-Initiated Payment Test with Consumer Oversight

The scenario, conducted in Germany, involved a complete first transaction: a consumer set the parameters of a purchase (product and timing), and then delegated the task to an AI merchant agent to execute within the set limits. The agent identified the product and the user authenticated their purchase intent via Visa Payment Passkeys. The transaction was then confirmed through biometric authentication and authorized by ING (the issuing bank) according to existing strong authentication criteria. Throughout the process, the AI agent operated within the precise framework of instructions defined by the consumer. ING maintained control over the authorization, producing a clear and verifiable record of what had been authorized, by whom, and under what conditions.

Worldline and ING Join Visa's Agentic Ready Program

Worldline and ING have joined Visa's Agentic Ready program, allowing both organizations to advance in the autonomous payment ecosystem in Europe. The transaction was processed end-to-end on Worldline's infrastructure, demonstrating how these operations can be conducted securely and smoothly in practice. For merchants, this proof of concept shows that opening up to agent-initiated orders does not diminish trust or fraud protection. Since the transaction was authenticated via Visa Payment Passkeys and authorized by a financial institution according to existing strong authentication requirements, merchants can accept autonomous orders with the same assurance as a traditional online purchase, without needing to build a specific payment infrastructure for AI-driven shopping.

A Pilot Contributing to the Maturity of Autonomous Payments

This test demonstrates how autonomous payments can function in practice and contributes to the ongoing development of autonomous commerce in Europe, strengthening confidence in this emerging capability. Madalena Cascais Tomé, a member of Worldline's executive committee, emphasized that the priority is to build trust in this new mode of shopping and payment, by orchestrating the participants in the payment value chain (issuers, acquirers, merchants, schemes) to enable these new models at scale.