Mastercard, the payments network, opened developer early access Tuesday to Agent Pay for Machines, an x402-based system designed to let AI agents buy digital services within business-set budgets and permissions, the company said in a press release.
When a service returns an HTTP “402 Payment Required” response, the agent creates a digitally signed payment voucher. The seller verifies it before providing the service, then can bundle vouchers for later settlement. Mastercard said these interactions happen off-chain; in its demonstration, Base supplied the on-chain settlement network and BVNK handled payments in fiat or stablecoins.
Pilots involved Cloudflare, Ant International, AIsa, Base, BVNK, Coinbase and marketing agency Hype. In a demonstration, an agent made nine payments to two providers while preparing a sample advertising campaign under one approved budget.
Mastercard announced the broader Agent Pay program in April 2025, using tokenized credentials for agent-led purchases, and unveiled Agent Pay for Machines in June 2026. Only now is it releasing APIs, tools and documentation for developers. DeAI News also reported that MoonPay introduced a Mastercard debit card allowing agents to spend stablecoins at online merchants.
The DeAI angle: Traditional payment firms are only now beginning to put x402-based systems into developers’ hands, as institutional backing grows faster than economic activity. A Visa-Artemis analysis cited about $15 million in adjusted volume since x402’s May 2025 launch, while later research put the median merchant’s 30-day revenue at just 6 cents. Mastercard adds reach and payment guarantees, but early access is not evidence of broad demand.
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