Colin Luce from Basis Theory joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about agentic commerce, tokenization, payment data security, and how teams can give agents useful access without giving away too much control.
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Why this matters
Agentic commerce changes the checkout question. A customer may ask an agent to research, choose, and buy. That creates new decisions around identity, consent, payment credentials, data access, and authorization.
Payment teams need to know where sensitive data appears, which systems can touch it, and what an agent is allowed to do before a transaction is approved.
Tokenization, vaulting, and permission design become part of the product experience, because trust depends on what happens behind the scenes.
What to watch
Map the flow before adding agents to payment journeys.
Payment data entry points
Systems with card access
Token coverage
Agent permissions
Consent capture
Authorization steps
Vendor data sharing
Compliance scope
What it means for your team
Agentic checkout will involve product, engineering, security, compliance, risk, and payments from the beginning.
Product needs a clear customer experience. Engineering needs controlled interfaces. Security needs to reduce sensitive data exposure. Compliance needs evidence around consent and scope. Risk teams need to understand what can be initiated by an agent and what requires the customer.
What to do next
Start with data access and permission boundaries.
Map the full payment flow
Tokenize sensitive data
Limit agent permissions
Define approval moments
Review consent language
Audit vendor access
Keep logs for review
Questions to ask internally
Where does sensitive payment data enter the flow?
Which systems can store or process it?
What can an agent do before customer approval?
How is consent captured and shown later?
Which tokens can be used, where, and by whom?
What changes in compliance scope?
Guest perspective
Agentic commerce needs payment infrastructure that keeps data controlled and useful.
Tokenization helps teams reduce exposure while still supporting new checkout flows.
Permissions matter as much as storage. Teams need to define what an agent can initiate, view, and approve.
The customer experience depends on trust, consent, and clear boundaries around payment credentials.
Listen or watch
Resources
Related episodes
Open Banking and Pay by Bank with Anubhav Pradhan, ShiftMate
Benefits of Payment Orchestration with Zubin Vandrevala, Gr4vy
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