Visa Supports Stripe and Tempo's Machine Payments Protocol with Card-Based Payments, Expanding Agentic Commerce

Visa Announces Card Support for Industry-Standard Agentic Payment Protocol

Visa Scales Agentic Commerce Through Stripe Protocol Collaboration | PYMNTS.com

Visa is supporting Stripe and Tempo's Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) by enabling card-based payments for trusted autonomous agent payments. The company

On March 18, 2026, Visa announced it would provide card-based payment specifications and an SDK for the "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)" jointly launched by Stripe and blockchain company Tempo. MPP is an open standard for AI agents to programmatically exchange payments with services and other agents. As a design partner for this protocol, Visa connects its global payment network to MPP and enables it on the Visa Acceptance Platform.

Industry Trends

AI agent capabilities are evolving rapidly, transforming from simple chatbots into autonomous entities that plan, execute, and evaluate tasks. The demand for "machine-to-machine payments" — where agents automatically pay for API usage, cloud resources, and dataset access — is growing.

However, current payment infrastructure was designed for humans. For agents to make purchases, many steps still require human intervention: account creation, pricing page review, and payment information entry. Visa's Head of Growth Products & Strategic Partnerships, Rubail Birwadker, stated in a December 2025 interview that payments will become "the next generation of one-click checkout, perhaps even requiring no button at all."

Visa had already announced the "Trusted Agent Protocol" in October 2025, building a framework to distinguish malicious bots from legitimate AI agents. Additionally, through "Visa Intelligent Commerce," the company has built an ecosystem with over 100 partners, with more than 30 developing in the sandbox. The MPP support is an extension of these efforts.

How MPP Works and What Visa Provides

The basic payment flow of MPP is straightforward. When an agent requests a resource from a service, the service returns payment requirements. If the agent authorizes payment, the resource is delivered. No browser or checkout screen required.

MPP, co-developed by Stripe and Tempo, features a "rail-agnostic" design supporting multiple payment methods including stablecoins, cards, and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL). While it runs on Tempo's mainnet, the protocol itself is not bound to any specific blockchain.

Visa released three components:

Card-based MPP specification: A technical specification defining how tokenized card credentials are processed within MPP. Published as a processor-agnostic open specification accessible to merchants, PSPs (Payment Service Providers), and acquirers.

SDK (Software Development Kit): Provided as an npm package implementing the specification, enabling developers to rapidly build card-based MPP transactions. Designed for programmatic use in command-line environments.

Security foundation: The specification and SDK are built on top of Visa Intelligent Commerce and Trusted Agent Protocol, ensuring safety through tokenization, authentication, and agent identity verification.

Birwadker stated that "in an era where agents autonomously process payments, security must be embedded at every layer — from authentication to data privacy to fraud prevention."

Impact on E-Commerce Businesses and How to Leverage

For businesses supporting MPP through Stripe, agent payments appear on the existing Stripe dashboard just like regular transactions. Tax calculations, fraud detection, reporting, and refund processing — the same payment infrastructure built for humans applies to agent payments.

New business models leveraging MPP are already emerging. Browser infrastructure provider Browserbase has introduced per-session billing for agents, and PostalForm has launched a service enabling agents to pay for printing and mailing.

A key point for e-commerce businesses is that over 100 services were registered in the directory at MPP's launch, covering model providers, developer infrastructure, compute platforms, and data services. Additionally, protocols compatible with MPP — including Coinbase's x402 protocol and Lightspark's Bitcoin payments — are expanding, with the agent payment ecosystem growing rapidly.

Stripe users can accept MPP payments with just a few lines of code using the PaymentIntents API. There's no need to act immediately, but it's worth starting preparations to open your APIs and services to agents.

Summary

With Visa's card specification, MPP has evolved into a "truly universal protocol" connecting not only stablecoins but also existing card payment networks. Visa predicts that by the 2026 holiday season, millions of consumers will make purchases through AI agents. The standardization of payment infrastructure is now seriously underway for an era where agents become "the new customers." For e-commerce businesses, the time has come to monitor MPP developments — backed by payment giants Stripe, Visa, and Tempo — and consider agent-readying their services.