Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
An open protocol for agent payments built on signed mandates, available as an extension to A2A.
The Agent Payments Protocol is an open protocol, first published by Google under the Apache License, for agent-led payments between users, agents, merchants and payment providers. It anchors trust in verifiable digital credentials called mandates, in open and closed forms, which are chained into an audit trail for both human-present and human-not-present transactions. It is available as an extension to Agent2Agent, and its documentation states that standardisation continues within working groups of the FIDO Alliance.
Agent Minute explains this term on 19 December 2026.
Related terms
MandateA checkable statement of what an agent may do for a principal: which action, how much, with whom and until when.Open mandateIn AP2, a mandate not yet bound to one action, carrying the user's constraints for the agent to act within.Closed mandateIn AP2, a mandate bound to one specific action, such as a finalised checkout or a specific amount.Checkout MandateIn AP2, the mandate that authorises completing a checkout, bound in its closed form to a merchant-signed cart.Payment MandateIn AP2, the mandate that authorises payment for a checkout, verified by the credential provider, network and processor.