[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] "Helping an agent make a payment and having an agent transact on my behalf are different issues."

Terry Angelos (테리 안젤로스), senior vice president for fintech and crypto at Visa and a former CEO of DriveWealth, recently underscored the point in a post on social media platform X (Twitter) titled "The Wallet Wars."

Angelos wrote that agents such as Instinct, OpenAI Dots and Meta Muse are evolving beyond giving answers to getting things done. An agent that schedules a child’s soccer activities could also buy soccer shoes. The key is payment authority. Without card details, an agent’s recommendations can only remain on a user’s to-do list.

The race to attach wallets to agents has already begun. Stripe Link (300 million people), Shopify Shop Pay (250 million people) and PayPal (more than 400 million people) are touting stored user card details and merchant networks as strengths. Stripe and Shopify support payments for Muse and Instinct.

But there is no wallet that works everywhere. Stripe Link is Stripe’s version of a simple-payment wallet that lets users pay in one step at multiple stores using Stripe after saving card details once. Link supports payments through virtual cards, one-time card numbers that an agent issues for online payments without a physical card, even if a merchant does not integrate with Link. In that case, a transaction happens twice, between the user and Link and between Link and the merchant.

That setup can clash with scenarios in which an AI agent makes payments. If Walmart suggests Walmart+ membership to a customer who buys items through an agent, the sign-up process could be disrupted because the card does not match. Even if a United Airlines ticket is bought with a Chase MileagePlus card, the merchant could see a Stripe virtual card, meaning miles may not be credited. Link’s terms also say original card benefits may not carry over in such transactions.

Angelos said, "You can replicate the payment, but there is no guarantee you preserve the relationship," comparing Stripe to AOL, which he said built a closed ecosystem.

"If there are multiple wallets and cards an agent can use, which one should it pay with?" A user may want to use an airline card for flights and another card for groceries. Angelos stressed that "agents need payment policies, not payment methods."

Liability is also a challenge. If a hotel is booked within a $500 limit but the dates are wrong, who should refund the money? Most wallets treat it as an approved transaction even if an agent misunderstood instructions. That means the agent must also prove it acted as set by the user.

Angelos said, "From the consumer’s perspective, it’s simple: if the agent buys the wrong thing, who fixes it?" As a solution, he cited card-network standards such as Visa Intelligent Commerce, Mastercard AgentPay and Amex ACE.

He described creating agent-only tokens that a wallet uses instead of card numbers and attaching conditions such as "under $100." A merchant accepts payment with the token, but the money is taken from the user’s card, and benefits such as miles accrue as usual. It is effectively payment through the user’s card even if the agent does not know the card number.

Angelos said, "AOL was training wheels that brought everyone online, but in the end the open web won," and predicted that "agent tokens will push out virtual cards and become the standard."