Are banks falling behind on agentic commerce standards?

• Key insights: A group of six banks, including ASB Bank, Bank of America, Capital One, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ING Group and NatWest have teamed up to publish a set of principles for the development of agentic commerce. 
• What's at stake: The paper — which highlights five key principles for the development of agentic AI, including transparency, safety, privacy and data, choice, and interoperability — comes as hyper-scalers call for a slowdown in AI development and payments companies and fintechs are already putting agentic features into live products. 
• Expert quote: "The market is racing faster than a white paper can chase: banks risk losing customers not only to AI, but to competitors and [large language models] using AI to control discovery, payment selection and  account opening." — Richard Crone, CEO, Crone Consulting. 

Six banks on Tuesday published a paper outlining a set of principles for the development of agentic commerce. But the call for a shared framework comes as payment companies and fintechs are forging ahead with the technology — and setting standards of their own.

ASB Bank, Bank of America , Capital One, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ING Group and NatWest were among the banks jointly publishing the report.

The paper highlights five key principles designed to support the responsible development of agentic commerce, including transparency, safety, privacy and data, choice and interoperability, and comes as hyper-scalers publicly call for a slowdown in AI advancement and payment companies are already putting agentic features into live products.

"As agentic commerce continues to evolve, establishing trust and confidence across the ecosystem will be critical to its long-term success," said Mark Monaco, Bank of America's head of global payments solutions, in a statement. "Building confidence among consumers, merchants and financial institutions will require thoughtful approaches to identity, authorization, fraud prevention, liability management and customer protection."

The paper is intended to build on a wider conversation, according to the banks, who are inviting "other banks and institutions across the payments ecosystem to engage with the principles, share different perspectives and work together on developing a blueprint for applying the principles in practice."

The group says its next step will be to release another paper about how the principles can be implemented.

"We read the publication as issuers asserting a governance voice separate from the network and platform-led protocol track, rather than an actionable change to the competitive landscape," Keybanc analysts said in a research note on Wednesday. "The principles are voluntary and non-binding, contain no fee, interchange, or routing content, and carry no implementation timetable."

But payments and technologies companies have been developing frameworks for agentic commerce for more than a year. In September 2025, Google launched its Agent Payments Protocol with more than 50 participating companies, and OpenAI and Stripe have also developed their own protocol, called the Agentic Commerce Protocol. Other companies such as Coinbase and Robinhood already have systems in place that allow customers to use the LLM of their choice and act on their behalf.

"The market is racing faster than a white paper can chase: banks risk losing customers not only to AI, but to competitors and [large language models] using AI to control discovery, payment selection and account opening," said Richard Crone, CEO of Crone Consulting.

"The fact of the matter is, [the banks] are doing this because the payment networks — Visa and Mastercard — are not representing their interests," Crone told American Banker.

Agentic commerce is creating a new revenue stream in the payments ecosystem that companies are racing to capture. Validating a transaction that involves an agent requires proof that the agent is acting on behalf of, and at the direction of, the consumer, and payment companies have turned to tokens to capture and communicate that information.

Companies that issue those tokens, such as Visa, Mastercard or Stripe, make money when they are issued, and can also bolt on other value added services to those payment tokens.

"One-time payment credentials position Visa, Mastercard, PayPal & Stripe to add new AI-initiated personalized data and value-triggered services based on intent and attribution, but issuing the underlying account does not automatically give banks a share of those revenues," Crone said.

Meta — which hasn't traditionally had a foothold in the payments industry — has also said they intend to monetize payments on its recently launched AI agent Muse by taking a small cut of each transaction.

Banks have largely sat on the sidelines of agentic commerce, but should take a more proactive approach, Crone said, by inserting themselves into the ecosystem.

"Banks' response should be Bring Your Own AI using a secure verification gateway that authenticates customers and agents, enforces consent and spending limits and preserves the bank's account and digital banking app as the system of record," Crone said.

That will give "banks a basis to negotiate data rights, attribution compensation and revenue sharing," he said.