Accenture Billing & Payments Engine Integrations

Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) is an open protocol designed together with over 60 payments, fintech, and tech companies (e.g., Mastercard, PayPal, Adyen, Coinbase, Etsy) to enable secure, agent-led transactions across platforms. It builds on earlier open standards like Agent2Agent (A2A) and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to ensure that when an AI agent initiates or completes a payment on behalf of a user, three core requirements are met: authorization (proving the user explicitly gave permission for that specific purchase), authenticity (ensuring the agent’s intended purchase matches what the user meant), and accountability (clear audit trails and responsibility in case of errors or fraud). The protocol uses mandates, which are cryptographically signed digital contracts backed by verifiable credentials.