Santander tests agentic payments with AI agents across five Latin American markets

Santander tests agentic payments across Latin America

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Conducted across five markets in the region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay) the bank used Visa's Intelligent Commerce product to demonstrate how consumers can securely delegate shopping tasks to trusted AI agents. AI agents successfully completed the purchase of books across Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, while in Brazil the transaction involved the purchase of chocolates. Matías Sánchez, global head of Cards and Digital Solutions at Banco Santander says the pilot validated key elements of the consumer journey, including consent capture, secure data handling, and interoperability across merchants and payment networks. "This is a major step toward making AI-assisted shopping a practical reality," he says. ""By testing real transactions, we demonstrated how these technologies act as enablers of secure, interoperable agentic commerce that maintains strong consumer protections and issuer controls." The latest pilots come just weeks after the bank collaborated with Mastercard to complete Europe's first live end-to-end payment executed by an AI agent.

Santander and Visa Launch LatAm Agentic Payments Project | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The companies announced Thursday (March 12) that they had completed a series of pilot agentic commerce transactions in five markets -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay -- powered by Visa Intelligent Commerce (VIC) solution. The pilot marks a "breakthrough in how consumers can securely delegate shopping tasks to trusted AI agents," the companies said in a news release. Artificial intelligence agents carried out the purchase of chocolates in Brazil, while the transactions in the remaining countries involved books, "providing a tangible proof point of cross-market execution," the release added. "This is a major step toward making AI-assisted shopping a practical reality," said Matías Sánchez, global head of cards and digital solutions at Santander. "By testing real transactions, we demonstrated how these technologies act as enablers of secure, interoperable agentic commerce that maintains strong consumer protections and issuer controls." Catalina Tobar, head of growth products and partnerships for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean, called the pilot a "defining moment" for commerce in the region. "Through Visa Intelligent Commerce, we're laying the foundation for AI-driven transactions that are secure, seamless and built for scale -- ensuring every player in the ecosystem is ready for what comes next," Tobar added. Visa unveiled Visa Intelligent Commerce in April of last year, saying the program opens the network's rails to developers building AI agents that search, recommend and make payments on behalf of consumers. "This is going to transform shopping and buying -- we're letting AI developers and engineers use the Visa network to allow AI agents to find, and buy, on [the consumer's] behalf in a seamless and safe way," Mark Nelsen, global head of consumers products at Visa, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview at the time. The partnership comes 10 days after Santander and Mastercard completed what they said was Europe's first live end-to-end payment using an artificial intelligence agent. This was the first agentic payment conducted within a regulated banking framework, and represents "a significant milestone in the application of AI systems capable of initiating and completing transactions on behalf of customers," the companies said in their announcement. Santander conducted the transaction in a "controlled environment" using Agent Pay, the agentic AI-driven payments program Mastercard debuted last year, per the release.