Visa announces new capabilities, including a live pilot enabling trusted AI agents to complete B2B invoice payments
New offerings include enhanced supplier-spend analytics, virtual-card fraud prevention capabilities and a live pilot enabling trusted AI agents to complete B2B invoice payments
Visa announced three capabilities across commercial card growth, virtual card security and agentic commerce for commercial payments. The capabilities are designed to help financial institutions, fintechs and businesses automate payment processes while maintaining the trust, visibility and control those transactions require for the future.
The enhanced capabilities include:
- SESA 2.0, the next generation of Supplier Enablement Spend Analytics, uses AI-driven spend analysis and predictive insights to help clients identify high-potential supplier opportunities. The enhanced platform helps organizations prioritize resources, focus enablement efforts and estimate the economic value of their commercial card program.
- Visa Commercial Fraud Solutions, a new suite of capabilities designed to help issuers and businesses validate suppliers, authenticate virtual-card payment activity and apply controls before a payment is approved.
- A live agentic pilot with BILL and Billtrust that enables trusted AI agents to initiate and help complete approved invoice payments through supplier portals, using Visa Intelligent Commerce and Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol.
“Businesses are moving quickly to automate the work around payments, from identifying supplier opportunities to approving invoices and executing transactions,” said Darren Parslow, global head of Visa Commercial Solutions. “These capabilities are designed to help them do that with the data, security and controls they need – whether they are growing commercial card acceptance, helping protect virtual-card payments from fraud, or testing how trusted AI agents can act on their behalf.”
Helping financial institutions find commercial card growth
Visa today announced the next generation of Supplier Enablement Spend Analytics, SESA 2.0. Building on four years of experience in helping financial institutions evaluate supplier payment opportunities, SESA 2.0 combines AI-driven supplier scoring, Visa commercial payments data, buyer benchmarks and business-value modeling. Together, these capabilities help financial institutions identify suppliers that may be more likely to accept commercial card payments and estimate potential commercial card growth opportunities. Since launch, SESA has helped financial institutions uncover more than $600 billion in potential cardable spend.1
As business payments become more digital, financial institutions need both a clear view of where card acceptance opportunities may exist and the information to evaluate those opportunities with confidence. Enhanced visibility into card acceptance can help suppliers and buyers make more informed decisions as they modernize payment flows.
Strengthening trust in commercial virtual card payments
Visa today announced Visa Commercial Fraud Solutions, a suite of capabilities designed to help strengthen security across commercial virtual card payments and support more trusted, automated payment experiences.
Juniper Research projects global B2B virtual card payment volume will reach $14.6 trillion by 2029, representing 83% of the global virtual card market. As adoption grows, organizations face increasing pressure to verify suppliers, authenticate users and help ensure payments are made as intended.
Visa Commercial Fraud Solutions provides protection across three key stages of a commercial payment:
- Visa Commercial Supplier Validation helps verify payments are sent to the intended supplier.
- Visa Commercial Virtual Authentication helps verify commercial virtual card users through 3-D Secure authentication.
- Visa Commercial Payment Controls enables businesses to set transaction-level controls, including spend, merchant category, location and timing parameters.
Visa Commercial Payment Controls are available in supported countries and territories to eligible issuing financial institutions. Visa Commercial Virtual Authentication and Visa Commercial Supplier Validation are currently in pilot and will be generally available in 2027.
Testing how trusted AI agents can complete business payments
Visa, BILL and Billtrust have also launched a live pilot that enables trusted AI agents to initiate and complete approved business invoice payments through supplier portals.
The pilot draws from Visa Intelligent Commerce and Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol to help establish the agent’s identity, confirm that it is authorized to act and ensure that the transaction follows business-defined controls and visibility. Instead of relying on shared supplier-portal login credentials, it uses tokenized payment credentials and connects buyer-side invoice approval with supplier-side payment acceptance. This gives businesses a way to test automated execution while maintaining visibility into who is acting, what the agent is permitted to do, and which transactions have been approved.
The pilot is currently live and processing end-to-end transactions with participating BILL customers and Billtrust suppliers.
Building a trusted foundation for automated commerce
As business payments are automated, trust can become a foundation that allows automation to scale. The future of commercial payments may depend not only on how quickly money can move, but also on whether every participant, credential and action can be identified, authenticated and governed. That can require reliable data, trusted identities and fraud controls that are designed to help approved transactions execute as intended. Visa is making investments across the payment process to help businesses maintain confidence in who is acting, what is authorized and how payments are completed. By embedding trust into every stage of the transaction process, Visa is helping businesses move from approved decisions to execution with greater speed, security and control.
