US-based Rain has launched Agent Vaults, an embedded payment infrastructure that allows AI agents to spend, receive, and send money.
According to the announcement, the product allows an AI agent to make payments, receive funds, and send money from a balance funded by its owner, within rules the owner sets. The agent can only spend or transfer what is held in the vault. For each purchase, Rain issues a scoped card accepted at 175 million merchant locations across 200 countries and territories. Agents can also send funds to local bank accounts in more than 80 countries.
Addressing the payment gap in agentic commerce
According to the company, AI agents can already search, compare, and shop, but payment remains a constraint. Companies building agents have had two main options. One is a raw card number, which works as a standing permission with no limit on its use. The other is a third-party wallet, which places another company’s login inside the developer’s app, shows that provider’s name on user statements, and applies a single limit to the whole balance.
Agent Vaults are designed to keep the user relationship with the partner. Developers embed the payment experience directly into their agents, the vault sits within the partner’s app, and the partner’s name appears on statements, while Rain provides the underlying technology and is not visible to end users. Farooq Malik, CEO and co-founder of Rain, said the setup lets businesses and consumers load a balance, set rules, and allow agents to pay through a single integration.
Funding, controls, and scoped cards
Vaults can be funded by bank transfer, including ACH, Fedwire, FedNow, SEPA, and FPS, as well as by card or stablecoins. Funds must be in the vault before any card is issued against it. Users funding from a bank account or card do not need to buy stablecoins, but the balance is held as stablecoins in a non-custodial wallet, while Rain settles with the card networks in stablecoins.
Agents pay with a virtual Visa or Mastercard card issued for a single task. The amount, merchant, and expiry are fixed at issuance and checked by Rain at authorisation, so merchants do not need to make changes. The agent cannot raise its own limit, and a single-use card stops working after one approved purchase.
The company illustrated the model with a small business example: a bakery owner funds a vault with USD 5.000 and allows the agent to pay suppliers only, with approval required above USD 1.500. Supplier purchases of USD 640 and USD 800 go through automatically. A USD 2.400 equipment purchase is held for approval because equipment falls outside the set rules.
Intended uses include payments to people and other agents, purchases, and micropayments for API calls. Businesses can fund vaults from business bank accounts to enable payouts once specified conditions are met.
Network integration and platform context
As a Visa and Mastercard Principal Member, Rain is enabling its programmes for Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay. Scoped cards issued from a vault will carry the networks’ agent credential, which signals user consent to the merchant and the issuer alongside the partner’s rules.
Agent Vaults build on Rain’s existing Agent Control Layer and scoped cards. The company started with stablecoin-powered cards. Its platform now lets partners issue cards, run wallets, move money, and settle across card and blockchain networks through one integration. A balance received by bank transfer can therefore be spent by an agent on a card and paid out to a bank account in another country without a second vendor. Rain is also a founding member of the Agentic Payments Alliance.
Rain is working with agent developers, marketplaces, and payment platforms on Agent Vaults.
