Search results for AP2
Finance
Hecto Financial joins global AI payment standard x402 to accelerate AI agent payments
Hecto Financial is stepping up its AI agent payment business by taking part in building a global AI payment standard. The company said on July 20 it joined the x402 Foundation, an open-source project developing standards for AI agent payments. It plans to combine its existing payment and settlement infrastructure with the Circle Payment Network and x402. Hecto Financial also completed a proof of concept based on Google’s AP2 standard and aims to commercialise it in the third quarter.
AI & Enterprise
Google unveils Universal Cart AI shopping tool that carries purchases through checkout
Google has unveiled an AI shopping tool called Universal Cart that brings multiple retailers into a single experience centered on Search and Gemini. Items found through search or chat can be saved to a Google cart and taken through checkout. The feature supports price tracking, price history and restock alerts, and can warn about incompatible purchases. Google Pay can link memberships and cards and suggest ways to save, while purchases can also be completed on retailers’ sites. Google is expanding AI-driven direct purchasing with approval and records.
Crypto
AI agent payments turn into new battleground, big tech and crypto in sights
Moves across the industry aimed at expanding AI agents are accelerating, with strong interest in AI agent payments in the global payments market. Major companies are competing to build protocols that allow AI agents to make payments without a human in the loop. Coinbase, Cloudflare and Google have unveiled related protocols, while Stripe and Paradigm-backed layer-1 blockchain Tempo introduced an open-source machine payment protocol supported by Visa.
