Mastercard Helps Danske Bank With Denmark-First Agentic Transaction

Mastercard said it has helped Denmark’s Danske Bank reach an agentic payments milestone.

Using Mastercard’s Agent Pay, Danske was able to complete a transaction in which an artificial intelligence (AI) agent made both the purchase and payment on a customers’ behalf, the payments giant announced Monday (Sept. 21).

According to a news release, this marked the first time in Denmark that an AI agent has made such a payment/purchase, booking a coffee tasting through Mastercard’s Priceless.com experience platform.

“AI can help make everyday life simpler, but trust and security must come first,” said Erik Gutwasser, Mastercard Northern Europe’s division president. “Agent Pay is designed to ensure that AI-powered transactions are transparent, securely authenticated and always under the consumer’s control. At the same time, the solution gives card issuers better insight into transactions initiated by AI agents.”

According to the release, the transaction shows how AI agents can make purchases for customers while making sure payment is made with the customer’s permission and “under a secure and verifiable framework.”

Danske Bank said it also sees opportunities in AI-powered payments, but stresses the importance of customer value, trust and control.

“AI-powered payments represent a new way for customers to interact with financial services. At Danske Bank, we are exploring the possibilities of the new technology with a strong focus on customer value, trust and control,” said Mark Wraa-Hansen, Danske Bank’s head of personal banking for Denmark. “Our collaboration with Mastercard shows how new technology can be combined with security and transparency to create payment experiences that are simpler, smarter and more secure for customers.”

Mastercard introduced Agentic Pay in 2025 and recently debuted Agent Pay for Machines, a service that lets agents transact with each other.

PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster spoke last week with Mastercard U.S. Co-President Chiro Aikat about the rise of agentic commerce at a time when 132 million Americans are already AI users.

He compared the development with previous changes in payments where consumers had to learn things like whether to swipe or dip a card, behaviors that eventually became routine.

“EMV, pay by phone and others as well,” Aikat said. “Agentic is exactly like that. In many ways, it’s accelerating faster.”

However, faster familiarity with AI doesn’t mean consumers will yield spending authority at the same rate. Webster cited PYMNTS Intelligence research showing thatexact divergence.

“We’ve seen this in our data,” Webster said, pointing out that consumers’ “interest over time in terms of delegating authority has declined, even though usage has increased.”