Cloudflare has joined forces with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to establish payment frameworks for AI agents that autonomously conduct transactions. This collaboration aims to secure the burgeoning “agentic commerce” economy, enabling AI systems to make purchases on behalf of users using programmable money like stablecoins.

Visa and Mastercard have introduced new AI-powered shopping tools designed to enhance the consumer shopping experience by providing personalized recommendations and improved security features. These innovations aim to streamline payment processes and make online shopping safer and more efficient for users.

Visa has proposed a $100 million bid to replace Mastercard as Apple's credit card partner, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal. This substantial offer is part of Visa's strategy to secure a prominent role in Apple's financial services, as competition intensifies in the credit card market.

The European Commission is investigating Visa and Mastercard regarding their transaction fees, which have raised concerns about unfair pricing practices in the payments industry. This scrutiny is part of broader efforts to enhance competition and transparency in the payments sector across Europe.