EMVCo

Pending

EMVCo Agent Payments — EMVCo (Visa + Mastercard + Amex + Discover + JCB + UnionPay)

Overview

EMVCo Agent Payments is the forthcoming card-based agent payment standard from EMVCo — the consortium behind chip cards (EMV), contactless payments, and 3-D Secure. It brings the full weight of the global card network infrastructure (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, JCB, UnionPay) to AI agent commerce. When finalized, it will enable any AI agent to make card-based payments with 3-D Secure authentication and payment tokenisation.

How It Works

EMVCo Agent Payments extends the existing 3-D Secure (3DS) and Payment Tokenisation standards for agent-initiated transactions. The flow combines three EMVCo technologies:

1. Payment Tokenisation: The agent's principal's card is tokenized into a DPAN (Device PAN) with a cryptogram, so the actual card number is never exposed to the agent or merchant.

2. 3-D Secure: Agent-initiated transactions go through 3DS authentication via the Directory Server. The principal pre-authorizes agent transactions through their banking app, and the 3DS authentication result is embedded in the payment token.

3. Agent Payment Token: A new token type that wraps the DPAN + cryptogram + 3DS result into a single credential the agent presents to merchants.

The specification is currently in working group stage. SettleGrid has implemented detection and 402 response generation so that early adopters can begin testing their agent payment flows.

How SettleGrid Integrates

SettleGrid supports EMVCo Agent Payments with full detection and 402 response generation. When the EMVCo specification is finalized, SettleGrid will add full payment processing via the card network acquirers. Currently, detection (x-emvco-agent-token header) and 402 responses (with supported networks, 3DS version, and tokenisation details) are fully functional. Validation is stub-marked pending the final specification.

Key Specs

Protocol	EMVCo — EMVCo Agent Payments
Backer	EMVCo (Visa + Mastercard + Amex + Discover + JCB + UnionPay)
Detection Header	x-emvco-agent-token
Identity Type	emvco-payment-token
Payment Type	card-network (Visa/MC/Amex/Discover/JCB/UnionPay)
Status	Pending

Code Example

Here is how a developer's tool works with EMVCo via SettleGrid:

emvco-example.tstypescript

// Agent paying for a SettleGrid tool via EMVCo Agent Payment
// (Once the EMVCo spec is finalized)

const response = await fetch('https://settlegrid.ai/api/proxy/risk-assessment', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    // EMVCo agent payment token (DPAN + cryptogram + 3DS)
    'x-emvco-agent-token': 'emvco_tok_dpan_abc123...',
    'x-emvco-network': 'visa',  // or mastercard, amex, etc.
    'x-emvco-3ds-ref': '3ds_auth_ref_xyz',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({ entity: 'ACME Corp', type: 'comprehensive' }),
})

// Developer side — zero config needed:
import { settlegrid } from '@settlegrid/mcp'

const sg = settlegrid.init({
  toolSlug: 'risk-assessment',
  pricing: { defaultCostCents: 50 },
  // EMVCo tokens will be verified automatically
  // when the specification is finalized
})

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