European payments firms launch Local Payments Council

By Divya Shah

Why it Matters: Agentic commerce is emerging as one of the next major developments in digital payments, enabling AI agents to make purchases and manage transactions on behalf of consumers. However, widespread adoption depends on clear standards around authentication, authorisation, liability and consumer protection. The new council signals the industry’s recognition that payment infrastructure, banks and FinTechs must collaborate early to establish trusted frameworks that allow AI-powered commerce to scale safely and securely.

A group of European payments companies has launched the Local Payments Council for Agentic Commerce, a new industry body created to develop standards for the emerging field of agentic commerce and ensure local payment systems can be integrated responsibly with AI-powered agents. 

The founding members include PPRO, BLIK, Bancontact, the European Payments Initiative (EPI), which operates the pan-European payment system Wero, and DIAS, Greece’s national payment clearinghouse. 

The council will assess how Europe’s local payment methods can be incorporated into agentic commerce models, where AI agents can act on behalf of consumers to initiate purchases and transactions. 

To support this objective, the group has identified five core focus areas. These include maintaining human control over transaction authorisation, ensuring AI agents can prove their legitimacy to banks and FinTechs, creating standardised methods for users to authorise agents to act on their behalf, establishing clear accountability frameworks for disputes and refunds, and defining how merchants can be identified and verified within agentic commerce ecosystems. 

Alexander Matthey, CTO at PPRO, said, “For agentic commerce to continue gaining momentum, consumers need to be able to use the local payment methods they already know and trust, even if an AI agent is purchasing on their behalf.” 

He added, “This next phase of development needs to make sure the rules around how local payments work with agentic protocols are there from the outset, rather than treated as an additional layer later on. We are bringing payment schemes together to find practical solutions to technical challenges and ensure local payments play a key role in the development of agentic commerce.” 

As digital assistants and AI agents become increasingly capable of conducting transactions on behalf of users, payment providers are looking to establish common standards that balance automation, security and consumer protection. 

The council’s formation follows a series of developments in the agentic payments space, including initiatives by major payment networks aimed at enabling AI-powered purchasing while maintaining trust, compliance and user control. 

By bringing together payment schemes and payment infrastructure providers, the group aims to ensure local payment methods remain a key component of future agentic commerce ecosystems across Europe.