Stablecoin payments infrastructure provider Rain has launched a coalition to help shape standards for agent-driven commerce.
The initiative, called the Agentic Payments Alliance (APA), counts Visa, Mastercard, Fiserv, Circle, Solana and Remitly among its founding members.
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According to Rain, several foundational elements needed to support the growth of global agentic commerce remain undefined. These include methods for authorising agents to transact, systems for detecting fraud, and mechanisms for extending loyalty and rewards programmes to agent-based transactions.
The APA was established to bring together companies developing this infrastructure, with the aim of coordinating efforts before individual organisations make decisions independently of one another, the company said.
Rain co-founder and CEO Farooq Malik said: “No single company should get to decide how agents transact on someone’s behalf. That has to come from the platforms building the rails, the regulators setting the rules, and the innovators closest to how agents are actually being used today.”
“We initiated the Agentic Payments Alliance to put all of these parties in the same room, and to do it now, while the category is still taking shape.”
The APA will operate as a coalition governed collectively by its founding members, who will jointly determine the alliance’s charter and mission.
Initial activities are expected to include collaborative research and framework development, testing of emerging standards related to agent identity and authorisation, and engagement on regulatory issues associated with agentic commerce.
Founding members will also receive early access to Rain’s Agentic Startup Program, an accelerator for early-stage companies building products for agentic commerce.
Mastercard executive vice president and global head of Digital Commercialization Sherri Haymond said: “The risk in a moment like this is not that the industry moves too slowly — it’s that innovation outpaces alignment.”
“For decades, Mastercard has helped shape the standards that enable commerce at scale, and our participation in the Agentic Payments Alliance is a natural extension of that work for the agentic era.”
Other APA members are Avalanche, Basis Theory, Chainalysis, Circle, Coinflow, Crossmint, delta Network, Episode Six, Evertec, Fireblocks, Kala, Lithic, Monad, PayOS, Rialo by Subzero Labs, Sardine, Shift4, Turnkey, Uniswap Labs, and Yuno.
