Stripe advances security for agentic commerce | PaymentsSource

• Key insights: Stripe has expanded its Shared Payment Token, a foundational security tool for agentic commerce, to work with Visa and Mastercard’s tokens. It also added Affirm and Klarna. 
• What’s at stake: In order for agentic payments to graduate to the mainstream, payment credentials need to be protected and customer intent needs to be captured.
• Forward look: The use of network-driven tokens for AI-driven payments represents one of the fastest paths to agentic commercialization, according to KeyBanc analysts.

As agentic commerce marches toward commercial viability, Stripe is taking steps to bring more payment methods and security tools into the mix. 

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Stripe is expanding its Shared Payment Tokens to include Visa and Mastercard tokens, as well as Affirm and Klarna’s tokens. Stripe’s SPTs are a foundational building block for agentic commerce that allow agents to make payments with a customer’s permission and preferred payment method without exposing the underlying payment credentials. Agentic network tokens function similarly to card-on-file network tokens. “Token” in this case refers to a security measure and not a cryptocurrency function. 

Stripe is already using these tokens to process transactions on supported AI agents, the company said. Companies like Etsy and Urban Outfitters are also using the STPs for agentic payments. 

How Stripe’s tokens work

“When a customer authorizes an agent to make purchases, Stripe provisions an agentic network token from Mastercard or Visa scoped to the customer’s intent and shares it with the agent. The agent can then use these tokens across any seller accepting agentic payments and anywhere Mastercard or Visa is accepted,” Stripe’s Head of Product, Cards, Vaults and Tokenization Viraj Gupta, wrote in a blog post. “The network then handles secure credential translation, verification, and authorization. This allows agents to vault agentic network tokens with Stripe once and use them across multiple sellers in alignment with the customer’s intent.”

How tokenization helps agentic commerce

Agentic commerce is still in its infancy, but tokenization has been hailed as one of the best paths to transmit payment information confidentially as well as customer intent – a key piece of the agentic commerce puzzle that is seen as paramount to prevent widespread charge-backs and disputes. 

Because of that, the use of network-driven tokens for AI-driven payments represents one of the fastest paths to agentic commercialization, according to KeyBanc analysts.

“In this model, the network token embeds customer purchase intent, enabling an agent to transact with any seller that accepts agentic payments through Visa/Mastercard,” KeyBanc said. “Overall, this development reinforces our view that core network advantages, such as trust, identity, global acceptance, governance, and tokenization, are durable and well-aligned with the emerging agentic commerce ecosystem.” 

Stripe also added support for Klarna and Affirm, which will allow agents to present the firms’ point-of-sale installment loans to customers on the agent’s user interface, and then pass on the seller’s credentials to the BNPL provider. 

“The infrastructure being built for agentic commerce will define online checkout for the next decade,” said David Sykes, chief commercial officer at Klarna. “As AI agents begin purchasing on consumers’ behalf, it’s critical that flexible payment options remain available.” 

“Commerce is evolving quickly in this golden age of AI, though the value and standard for paying over time remain durable and even more relevant,” said Vishal Kapoor, SVP of product at Affirm in a statement. 

For Klarna and Affirm, the move is yet another distribution play, according to Ben Danner, a senior analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research. 

“BNPL is at a point where it’s table stakes from an online payments acceptance standpoint,” Danner said. “Just like consumers expect the option of BNPL at the traditional online checkout experience, the consumer of the future will expect their agentic commerce experience to have a seamless BNPL integration.” 

Stripe said it plans to expand STP to more payment methods in the future.