Infinicept Whitepaper · 14 pages
Agentic AI is about to reshape payments. Your dispute frameworks weren’t built for it.
Agentic AI in Payments: A Prescriptive Playbook for Networks, Regulators, and the Payments Industry
A prescriptive playbook for card networks, regulators, issuers, acquirers, and merchants – from the people who led the development of the ETA Payment Facilitator Guidelines.
- The four core challenges agentic commerce creates – and why existing infrastructure can’t absorb them.
- Concrete, role-by-role recommendations for networks, regulators, issuers, acquirers, and merchants.
- How to develop the next generation of risk professionals as AI takes over routine work.
Get the playbook
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The stakes
The transformation is coming fast – and the numbers are already moving.
Surge in dark-web posts discussing “AI agent” tools over six months.
Projected global chargebacks by 2028 – a 24% climb from 2025.
Cost to a financial institution to process each disputed transaction.
The core challenges
Four problems existing payments infrastructure was never designed to handle.
Agentic systems don’t just respond to prompts – they make decisions and take actions autonomously. That breaks assumptions baked into every dispute framework we have.
Authorization ambiguity
If an agent saw you researching coffee cups and ordered them when they went on sale, did you authorize that transaction? Current dispute frameworks have no clear answer.
Authenticity verification
When an agent orders the wrong color, books incorrect dates, or “hallucinates” instructions, how does a merchant distinguish a legitimate complaint from sophisticated fraud?
Product gaps
When an agent finds a price a human would know is unreasonable, how do we ensure it isn’t buying a counterfeit – and pushing money into the wrong hands?
Accountability gaps
Agentic commerce adds AI platforms as a fifth party to the dispute. Current frameworks don’t define liability when an agent malfunctions – and merchants are likely to bear the brunt.
Who it’s for
A playbook for every seat at the table.
Each participant in the payments ecosystem has a distinct role to play before the problems arrive. The whitepaper offers specific recommendations for each.
Set the rules
Create transaction indicators, agent-specific reason codes, and clear liability allocation for autonomous payments.
Enable & protect
Clarify how consumer protection laws apply to agent-initiated transactions – without writing rigid, soon-obsolete rulebooks.
Prepare for complexity
Update dispute playbooks, invest in intent-validation tools, and stay close to emerging network protocols.
Defend the front line
Implement agent detection, capture delegation data for disputes, and automate chargeback management now.
About the authors
Written by the people who led the development of the ETA Payment Facilitator Guidelines.
Deana Rich
Over 35 years in payments risk and operations, and a recognized authority on PayFacs and payment risk and compliance strategy.
Todd Ablowitz
A 30-year payments-industry veteran and recognized authority on embedded payments, PayFacs, and payment technology strategy.
The cost of waiting
Ready to prepare your payments program for the agentic era?
The companies that engage early will help shape the liability frameworks and value-capture models that define agentic commerce. Those that wait will adapt to rules others wrote.