Rain, a provider of enterprise infrastructure for stablecoin-powered payments, has announced the formation of the Agentic Payments Alliance (APA), a coalition of organisations set up to help guide the development of agentic commerce. The initiative brings together companies from payments, financial services, technology, and policy to work on shared standards as autonomous agents begin to transact on behalf of users and businesses.
Addressing gaps in agentic commerce infrastructure
McKinsey projects that global agentic commerce could reach between USD 3 trillion and USD 5 trillion by 2030. Much of the infrastructure this activity will depend on, including how agents are authorised, how fraud is detected, and how loyalty and rewards are attributed to an agent's actions, remains undefined. The APA was formed to bring the organisations building this infrastructure into a shared forum before such decisions are made separately across the industry.
Rain's own work in this area includes its Agent Control Layer and Scoped Cards, tools designed to give agents payment credentials that are limited in scope and widely accepted. That groundwork positioned the company to convene the coalition alongside established payments and infrastructure providers rather than pursue the category independently.
Structure and planned activities
The Alliance is described as a working coalition governed collectively by its founding members, rather than a body owned or controlled by a single company. Members are expected to jointly define its charter and mission. Initial areas of focus include shared research and frameworks, testing of emerging standards for agent identity and authorisation, and engagement on regulatory questions raised by agentic commerce.
Founding members will also receive early access to Rain's Agentic Startup Program, an accelerator for early-stage companies developing products for agentic commerce. The programme's first cohort, comprising five startups, is scheduled to present at a demo day open to Alliance members, giving founding organisations visibility into applications emerging in this area.
Representatives from Mastercard and Rain noted that the coalition reflects an effort to align industry participants, regulators, and technology providers on common rules for agent-based transactions at an early stage of the category's development.
Founding members and participation
The founding coalition comprises Avalanche, Basis Theory, Chainalysis, Circle, Coinflow, Crossmint, delta Network, Episode Six, Evertec, Fireblocks, Fiserv, Kala, Lithic, Mastercard, Monad, PayOS, Rain, Remitly, Rialo by Subzero Labs, Sardine, Shift4, Solana, Turnkey, Uniswap Labs, Visa, and Yuno.
Organisations across payments, financial services, technology, and policy interested in joining the Agentic Payments Alliance can contact the coalition directly at apa@rain.xyz.
