Visa has launched Agentic Ready in Malaysia with Alliance Bank, CIMB and Maybank to help card issuers prepare for AI-initiated payments.

The programme is part of Visa’s wider Asia Pacific rollout focused on agentic commerce, where AI agents may initiate and complete transactions on behalf of consumers.

In its first phase, Visa Agentic Ready will focus on issuer readiness.

Banks will be able to test agent-initiated transactions in a controlled, production-grade environment as part of the readiness phase.

The programme uses Visa’s existing network capabilities, including tokenisation, identity, risk management and payment controls, to examine how these transactions could be supported securely.

Previn Pillay, Country Manager at Visa Malaysia, said,

“Visa Agentic Ready gives Malaysian issuers a practical and structured way to better understand how agent-initiated payments could work on the Visa network — before these experiences scale.

At the same time, Visa is also working globally with merchants, platforms, and technology partners to enable trusted agent-driven commerce, so that when these experiences mature, they come together seamlessly across the ecosystem.”

The programme builds on Visa Intelligent Commerce, its portfolio of initiatives and solutions focused on AI-driven commerce.

The company has enrolled partners from 10 markets across Asia Pacific into the Agentic Ready programme.

Besides Malaysia, the programme is available in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Visa said more partners are expected to join as the programme expands to merchants and other ecosystem players.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Malaysia, based on image by thanyakij-12 via Magnific