An AI agent making an account-to-account payment on someone's behalf has, until now, been theoretical. This month, that’s become a reality. Working alongside the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) AI Live Testing programme, a dedicated space where select companies build and test AI-powered financial products alongside the regulator to bring things like agentic payments to life, we’ve completed the UK’s first agentic account-to-account (A2A) payment. A donor set up a recurring gift to the anti-poverty charity and food bank network Trussell entirely through conversation with an AI agent.
This is the first step in a bigger shift: how consumers engage with, and pay, businesses.
The mechanics matter more than the novelty. Donors can have a real-time conversation with an AI agent, ask about Trussell’s work and how their donations are used, and take the final steps to set up a donation for £5, £10, £15 or £20 per month, using Direct Debit. All of this happens in one conversation that becomes the payment journey, with an AI agent driving the process to capture bank details, set up a Direct Debit mandate, and make a payment. Unlike cards, Direct Debit and Recurring Pay by Bank are specifically built for this.
This is a major milestone not only for payments, but for the way consumers interact with businesses too. This first step into account-to-account agentic payments shows:
- AI agents can safely complete payments directly between payers and businesses.
AI agents can safely complete payments directly between payers and businesses.
- A2A payments provide essential control. Certain forms like Recurring Pay by Bank allow payers to set limits or revoke permissions at any time with a clear consent trail.
A2A payments provide essential control. Certain forms like Recurring Pay by Bank allow payers to set limits or revoke permissions at any time with a clear consent trail.
- Built with compliance at the forefront, and designed to align with the same security and regulatory requirements as other payment methods.
Built with compliance at the forefront, and designed to align with the same security and regulatory requirements as other payment methods.
Trustworthy innovation
The adoption and trust of AI with finances isn't happening in a vacuum. The UK government has set out agentic payments as one of the top five priority areas for scaling AI safely within financial services. And many people already trust AI and the likes of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini to help them make financial decisions. In a landmark report published by the FCA, its own consumer research found that one in five UK adults is already open to AI making decisions for them. From a global perspective, Morgan Stanley estimates AI agents could handle up to $385 billion of US e-commerce spending, capturing 10%-20% of market share by 2030.
Incorporating AI agents into payments and having the ability to make and manage payments on people’s behalf offers an exciting new opportunity for customer experience while maintaining the same levels of security we’re accustomed to today. Although these AI companies own the LLMs we interact with, they won’t be the ones actually handling consumer payment data. Instead, payments will be powered by payment providers and connected through Model Context Protocols or MCPs.
This works as a proof of concept, but it also tests a bigger claim: that account-to-account rails, not cards, are the right foundation for agentic payments. Cards were built for a person presenting a credential at the point of sale, not for a third party, human or AI, that holds standing, revocable authority to act within limits over time, but A2A payments were. A2A payments like Direct Debit and especially Recurring Pay by Bank (powered by open banking) are built around the exact building blocks agentic commerce needs: payer-set control like quantity limits, cancelling a mandate and final approval, rather than a one-off card-present authorisation.
Trussell is the first partner to test this with us, but not the last. The next question for any business that takes recurring payments is which rails their customers' agents will use, and how much control travels with them.
See agentic payments for yourself
Curious what an AI agent handling a payment on your behalf actually looks like? See the Trussell experience live, talk with the agent, explore donation options and get in touch if you want to talk through what an agentic payment experience could look like for your business.
Try agentic payments now →
