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Visa has expanded its Visa Agentic Ready programme to issuers in Canada, extending its global effort to support payments initiated by AI agents.
The programme is designed to help issuing banks and payment partners test how AI systems could initiate and complete transactions on behalf of consumers and businesses. In Canada, it has been adapted to local market conditions while using the same underlying framework already introduced in Europe, Latin America and the Asia Pacific.
At the centre of the initiative is a testing environment that allows participants to run agent-initiated payments in live commercial settings using real cards and merchants. Issuers can use it to examine card enrolment, tokenisation, authentication, and transaction authorisation, and to identify operational gaps before wider adoption.
Visa is positioning the scheme as a way for financial institutions to assess how trust, security and user control should work when AI software begins taking action on behalf of account holders. That includes reviewing whether payment credentials remain tied to a real individual and whether consent and transparency are maintained during transactions.
Canadian partners
Several of Canada's largest banks are among the early issuing partners in the local rollout, including BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank and TD.
Their involvement gives the programme an early foothold in one of North America's most concentrated banking markets. More Canadian issuers are expected to join as the work develops.
Agentic commerce has become a growing focus for payments groups as generative AI tools evolve from answering queries to performing tasks, including shopping and making payment decisions. That shift raises questions for card networks and banks about authentication, liability, fraud controls, and the rules that apply when software acts on behalf of a person or business.
The Canadian programme is built on Visa's existing payments infrastructure, including tokenisation, identity checks, authentication systems, risk management tools and transaction controls. The company linked the work to its broader push towards full tokenisation of online payments, arguing that these systems can help preserve oversight when AI agents trigger purchases.
Michiel Wielhouwer, President and Country Manager, Visa Canada, described the launch as an early step for domestic issuers as they prepare for a shift in digital commerce.
"Visa Agentic Ready gives Canadian issuers a meaningful head start in preparing for agent-initiated commerce," said Wielhouwer.
"The program provides a controlled environment to test and validate how agent-initiated payments can operate responsibly within Canada, while building the confidence needed to move these experiences from concept to reality, on the secure payment rails people rely on every day," he said.
Wider rollout
The Canadian expansion is part of a broader international rollout tied to Visa Intelligent Commerce, the company's portfolio of AI-related commerce initiatives. In the United States, the wider effort has already gone live across a range of agents and partners, with transactions already taking place.
That gives Canada a place in a broader testing ground for a model of commerce that could alter how consumers interact with merchants, banks and card issuers. For banks, one immediate issue will be how to maintain existing safeguards as purchasing decisions are increasingly delegated to software.
In practical terms, the programme is designed to give issuers and merchants a way to observe how these transactions behave before they become common. It allows participants to compare established payment flows with those triggered by AI agents and examine where existing systems may need to change.
Visa said the work in Canada is being developed with financial institutions across the domestic payments market so that any move towards agent-driven commerce reflects local consumer expectations. The aim is to ensure that the protections cardholders already expect continue to apply as AI tools take on a bigger role in shopping and payments.
The early participation of BMO, CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank and TD brings much of Canada's mainstream issuing market into the initial tests.