Visa, Lianlian complete first B2B AI agent payment

Visa and Lianlian DigiTech have completed a live business-to-business agentic transaction in Greater China, carried out by Lianlian's LoopXPay AI agent.

The transaction covered sourcing a product sample from a supplier, comparing options, placing the order and making payment in a single workflow. No human completed each step manually during the process, according to the companies.

The move points to a new use of AI agents in commercial purchasing, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, which often manage procurement without dedicated teams. In this case, the agent operated within predefined spending controls and approval parameters while carrying out the purchase.

Visa and Lianlian described the transaction as the first live B2B agentic transaction in Greater China. They presented it as an example of how purchasing and payment tasks can be delegated to software while businesses retain oversight of spending decisions.

How it worked

LoopXPay identified the purchasing requirement, recommended suppliers, compared them and completed the order. Payment was then executed as part of the same sequence.

The arrangement also ties into Visa's work on verification for AI-driven payments. As part of the collaboration, LoopXPay has been registered in Visa's Agentic Directory, which is intended to help businesses and merchants identify verified AI agents within the network.

Visa said the directory supports implementation of its Trusted Agent Protocol to give participants more transparency into agent-led interactions and assurance that approved agents meet its requirements.

The development comes as payment groups and financial technology companies test how AI software can move beyond customer service and data analysis to carry out commercial tasks. Procurement is one of the clearest early applications because it involves repeatable steps, rules-based approvals and established payment flows.

For smaller businesses, those tasks can absorb management time that would otherwise go to sales, operations or expansion. Automating supplier selection and payment execution may reduce manual work, although it also raises questions about how firms monitor decisions made by software.

"AI-powered commerce experiences can help businesses simplify purchasing and payments while maintaining the controls and oversight they require. For SMBs, that means less complexity in managing day-to-day commercial activities and more time focused on growth. As businesses increasingly look to embed intelligence into purchasing and payment experiences, trust will become a critical enabler of adoption. Through our collaboration with Lianlian, we are helping advance the trusted foundations that businesses will need to participate in this next era of commerce with confidence," said Darren Parslow, Global Head of Visa Commercial Solutions at Visa.

Lianlian is positioning the work as part of a broader push into what it describes as AI-native financial infrastructure. Its business spans cross-border payments, compliance and settlement, areas that become more important if software agents are allowed to initiate and complete transactions across markets.

The group, founded in 2009, said it has built a global licensing portfolio of 68 payment licences and related qualifications. It also said it supports services in more than 200 countries and regions, enables transaction settlement in more than 140 currencies, connects with more than 180 global eCommerce platforms and has served more than 13.3 million customers.

Trust and control

The central issue for businesses considering agent-led purchasing is whether the system can prove who or what is initiating a transaction, and whether that transaction remains within rules set by the company. Visa's directory and protocol are designed to address that by linking identity, approval and transaction controls.

That matters in business payments because procurement decisions often involve supplier risk, internal spending limits and audit requirements. If AI agents are to handle more of those actions, companies will need systems that show who approved what, under which conditions and with what authority.

"AI is reshaping the entire commercial value chain, where a growing number of business activities will be autonomously executed by AI agents, with payments serving as the critical infrastructure connecting them to global commerce. Leveraging its experience in global cross-border payments, compliance, as well as payment network, LianLian is actively building AI-native financial infrastructure, delivering an integrated suite of capabilities for the Agent Economy, spanning identity verification, transaction authorisation, intelligent payment, and global fund settlement. Through this collaboration with Visa, we aim to combine Lianlian's AI-native capabilities with Visa's trusted global network and commercial payment expertise to help businesses transact more securely, intelligently and efficiently in an increasingly agent-driven commerce environment," said Zhang Zhengyu, Founder, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Lianlian DigiTech.