Money20/20 USA focuses on payments innovation and AI agents
Money20/20 USA in Las Vegas, held October 18-21, brought together industry leaders to discuss practical steps for advancing payments innovation beyond product demos. Attendees focused on how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and stablecoins can function in real-world transactions. Visa, BILL, and Billtrust announced a pilot program allowing AI agents to initiate and complete approved invoice payments through supplier portals. Evervault and Browserbase introduced Browser Tokens to help agents access accounts without handling passwords or payment credentials.
Permission and Security in Agentic Commerce
Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol aims to authenticate agents without requiring login credentials. The developments address a growing need for systems that recognize software acting with customer permission while blocking malicious bots. Dean Hickman-Smith, chief revenue officer at Testlio, described consumers giving AI agents pictures of refrigerators to order groceries. Margaret Ryan, product lead at American Express Digital Labs, noted that nearly 75% of consumers consider shopping with a preferred merchant important when AI handles the process. However, only 36% expressed comfort allowing an agent to complete a transaction.
Consumers may accept AI narrowing choices, but spending money requires trusting the agent to act within clear boundaries. Fraud teams are responding to this challenge by deploying similar technology to defend against criminal activity. Sarah Ward, chief legal and administrative officer at Chainalysis, described AI as “the biggest force multiplier that fraud has ever seen.” She argued that firms must share intelligence more freely because criminals already operate across networks to exchange information.
Security providers are building tools to help financial institutions respond to these threats. DataVisor launched Vera Code at the conference, an AI agent designed to assist institutions in building and updating fraud and anti-money laundering systems using natural language instructions. This tool allows organizations to identify suspicious activity more quickly. DataVisor’s launch aims to help financial institutions identify and respond to suspicious activity more quickly.
Stablecoins Enter Mainstream Infrastructure
Stablecoin adoption strategies presented at the conference centered on reducing risk and simplifying usage. Mastercard launched Stablecoin Security, which uses traditional financial and blockchain signals to assess risk before transactions move on-chain. Mesh and Visa announced a partnership enabling consumers to spend crypto and stablecoins at Visa merchants. Mesh converts the digital assets into local currency at checkout, allowing merchants to receive payment as they normally would.
Managing Complex Transaction Flows
Payment providers are working to simplify the management of diverse transaction types. J.P. Morgan Payments announced support for Mercado Libre’s Global Selling program, helping U.S. merchants sell to buyers in Latin America through business identity onboarding and payment flows. Standard Chartered’s global head of FI Clearing and PayTech Payments, Danielle Sharpe, described “orchestration” as determining how a payment should move based on client needs rather than asking clients to choose the underlying rail.
Businesses face the challenge of supporting new capabilities like stablecoins and AI-initiated transactions without adding unnecessary complexity. Adit Gadgil, head of global e-commerce and technology for merchant services at Fiserv, stated that merchants are assessing whether their existing systems can handle these new demands or if they require separate infrastructure. Building separate systems for every new capability increases costs and creates disconnected tools. Attempting to force new transaction types into legacy systems can lead to operational and security risks.
