Agentic Commerce and the Battleground for New Payments Infrastructure (BoE)
A post on the Bank of England (BoE) “Bank Underground) blog explores how agentic commerce could reshape future payment design. Agentic commerce shifts retail payments from human‑initiated, low‑frequency transactions to AI‑initiated, high‑frequency, low‑value flows that span multiple payment rails. The post maps four emerging layers—agent communication, payment initiation, identity assurance and settlement rails—but stresses current standards are proprietary and non‑interoperable across card, account‑to‑account and blockchain systems. This fragmentation creates design problems around consistent human‑agent identity, support for micro‑payments at scale, and enforcing deterministic legal requirements in probabilistic AI environments. The post argues for an abstraction layer that lets agents complete checkouts regardless of rail, and raises the policy question of whether a central authority should mandate common identity and interoperability standards for agentic payments, while remaining technologically neutral across cards, stablecoins and tokenized deposits. [BoE]
Despite Trump’s Pledge, a CBDC is Being Explored Behind Closed Fed Doors, Says Former CTFC Chair (CoinDesk)
Former CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad argues that, despite public denials, the Federal Reserve is in practice working on central bank digital currency (CBDC) type infrastructure, including through its participation in the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Agora. He characterizes U.S. involvement in such tokenized wholesale settlement experiments as evidence that officials are effectively developing CBDC rails “behind closed doors,” even while insisting that a retail digital dollar is not on the Fed’s agenda. In a clumsily written January 2025 Executive Order, U.S. President Trump prohibited the Fed from undertaking any action to establish, issue, or promote CBDCs, and ordered the termination of any ongoing plans or initiatives related to the creation of a CBDC. Unfortunately the Order encompassed both retail and wholesale CBDC which, in theory, means that Fed should shut down all account services it provides to U.S. banks. The language defining the type of CBDC to be banned in the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act that is currently bouncing around the U.S. Congress is more refined, focusing on CBDC that is widely available to the public. [CoinDesk]
FYI I produce a monthly digest of digital fiat currency (DFC) developments exclusively for the official sector (e.g., central banks, ministries of finance and international financial institution (e.g., the BIS, IMF, OECD, World Bank)) plus academics and firms that are active in the DFC space (commercial banks, technology providers, consultants, etc.). (DFCs include central bank digital currency (CBDC), stablecoins and tokenized deposits.) It goes out via email on the first business day of every month, and if you’re interested in being on the mailing list, please email me at john@kiffmeister.com.
