AI Pay HQ
The authorization layer beneath agentic payment protocols.
Mastercard Agent Pay, x402, MCP, Google AP2, and Stripe MPP provide the payment rails. IBA declares what an agent is authorized to pay for — before it touches any of them.
“How do they know the consumer authorized the agent to make the purchase? How can they know if the agent has carried out the consumer’s instructions correctly?”
— Pablo Fourez, Chief Digital Officer, Mastercard · from Mastercard’s official announcement of the Agent Pay Acceptance Framework, October 2025
Signs before agent acts
Agent gets payment tool
HTTP payment executes
Card/stablecoin settles
| Protocol | Solves | Leaves Open |
|---|---|---|
| MCP (Anthropic) | Tool access | Which tools the agent is authorized to invoke |
| x402 (Coinbase) | HTTP-native payment mechanics | What the agent may pay for, to whom, how much |
| AP2 (Google) | Agent payment sessions | Pre-execution authorization boundary |
| MPP (Stripe/Tempo) | Machine-native payment rails | Who declared the agent’s spending authority |
| Agent Pay (Mastercard) | Card-based agentic payment infrastructure | Cryptographic pre-execution authorization |
| IBA | Signed cert before any protocol is invoked | Patent GB2603013.0, pending |
This compares publicly announced protocols by their own stated scope — it isn’t a claim that any of these companies are aware of or have integrated with IBA.
| Demo | Status |
|---|---|
| Agent Pay — Wallet Demo | Verified — real interactive gate, tested |
| x402 + IBA — Authorization Gap | Verified — real interactive gate, tested |
| MCP + x402 + IBA — Complete Stack | Verified — real interactive gate, tested |
| Voice Payment Authorization | Verified — real interactive gate, tested |
| Quantum Mempool Defense | Verified — grounded in real, independently reported Google research |
| Shard Token — Sub-Agent Delegation | Verified — real interactive gate, tested |
| Patent | GB2603013.0, UK IPO — Pending |
| PCT | 150+ countries, to August 2028 |
| NIST filings | 13, Docket NIST-2025-0035 — on the public record |
| NCCoE filings | 10, AI Agent Identity & Authorization — on the public record |
| Gate latency | Sub-millisecond, measured directly in the tested reference implementation |