Visa and Mastercard have agreed to reduce interchange fees by 0.1% over several years. The settlement allows merchants to choose which types of Visa cards they will accept, potentially categorizing cards based on rewards and other features. Mastercard claims this will benefit smaller merchants through lower costs and more acceptance options.

Fiserv has teamed up with Visa and Mastercard to provide merchants with AI-driven commerce tools. These tools will help identify legitimate AI shopping agents and enable secure transactions, although access dates for merchants are still unclear. This move reflects a growing trend in agentic commerce, where AI agents assist in shopping.

FIS has introduced a new platform that enables banks to engage in agentic commerce, allowing transactions initiated by AI agents. This service, developed in collaboration with Mastercard and Visa, aims to enhance security and streamline payment processes while reducing fraud. It will be available to FIS bank clients by the end of Q1 2026.

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.