Fed's Waller says AI shopping agents need a new kind of authentication
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller told Sibos 2026 in Miami on September 29 that agentic commerce changes what payment authentication must prove: not just that a buyer is authorized to pay, but that an agent has authority to pay on the buyer's behalf. He pointed to a possible new payment object, a machine-readable record of delegated authority akin to a digital power of attorney, spelling out what an agent can buy, how much it can spend and when that authority expires.
NoteWaller named authentication, liability and fraud as the barriers holding back agent-delegated shopping. Card networks are already filling the gap with their own credentialing schemes, so banks may end up choosing between competing standards before regulators settle on one.
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