Lobster.cash and Mastercard have launched a plan to integrate Agent Pay and Verifiable Intent, enabling secure card-based AI agent transactions.

By linking network-backed payment infrastructure with a standards-based authorization layer, this integration aims to extend trusted card payments into open agentic ecosystems. With OpenClaw, Mastercard cardholders will have the ability to authorize AI agents to make purchases on their behalf. Each transaction is governed by issuer controls and authenticated through Mastercard’s network, ensuring it is cryptographically linked to the user’s explicit intent. Additionally, Basis Theory serves as the agentic credential layer in this solution.

Cryptographic authorization as a trust layer

A key element of this integration is Mastercard’s Verifiable Intent framework, which has been co-developed with Google and aligns with the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). This framework generates cryptographic records that are tamper-resistant, enabling issuers, merchants, and platforms to independently confirm that each transaction was performed within the scope explicitly approved by the user.

Verifiable Intent is designed to be protocol-agnostic, functioning as a shared source of truth across open agent ecosystems. Its inclusion in the Lobster.cash integration addresses an important accountability issue: establishing who authorized an agent and under what conditions and boundaries.

Mastercard Agent Pay has already been adopted by several financial institutions globally, including Santander, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, DBS, and UOB. The collaboration with Lobster.cash aims to extend this infrastructure into developer-led, open-platform environments.

Expanding to agentic platforms

Lobster.cash currently supplies payment infrastructure across several agent platforms such as OpenClaw, Claude Code, Devin, Hermes, and Zo Computer. Mastercard Agent Pay will initially be available to OpenClaw agents through Lobster.cash, with plans for wider deployment on additional supported platforms.

The integration will begin via an early access program before it expands to the broader OpenClaw community. It provides agent users with programmatic control over spending parameters including amount, merchant category, timing, and payment method, while still maintaining issuer oversight and consumer protections inherent in standard card transactions.

This arrangement highlights a larger shift in payments infrastructure where network operators, issuers, and developers are working to establish clear authorization standards for autonomous agents operating across multi-platform environments. By anchoring agentic transactions to existing card rails instead of requiring proprietary wallets or separate credentialing systems, the integration reduces barriers to adoption for both consumers and developers.