UBS Napa Recap: Agentic Commerce (VGS, Basis Theory, & Lane)

Research evidence excerpt

UBS Napa Recap: Agentic Commerce (VGS, Basis Theory, & Lane)

their branding or marketing strategy.

PSPs evolving role in enabling agentic commerce: Panelists believed that PSPs will

remain relevant for merchants as agentic commerce becomes more prevalent, albeit

with an increased risk of payment processing commoditization. Specifically, panelists did

not expect the "last mile" of payment processing to change and thus believed PSPs will

continue to provide a valuable service enabling eCommerce checkout. With that said,

panelists believed the shift toward API-driven commerce may alter where PSPs compete

and how merchants think about vendor optionality. Specifically, many traditional web

checkout experiences lock merchants into a particular processor, but integrating API-

based checkout infrastructure (and the corresponding modernization of merchant

payment stacks) could provide merchants with more optionality to route transaction

flow across different PSPs (i.e., it could expedite the adoption of orchestration). This

creates a degree of added optimization and transparency (generally a negative for

pricing), despite an expectation that the last mile of processing itself may not change

dramatically. Simultaneously, agentic commerce creates an opportunity for PSPs to help

merchants solve upstream problems such as delegated intent, authority, and credential

provisioning for agentic flows, which could push PSPs closer to an issuer-like role

provisioning credentials and enabling agentic transactions (Stripe was highlighted as an

early leader pursuing this opportunity).

Card networks well positioned for agentic commerce: Panelists saw limited risk

that card networks would be cut out of agentic transactions, particularly with regards to

existing domestic consumer commerce flows.