---
term: "Gross negligence"
category: "Liability and disputes"
url: https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/gross-negligence
source: AgenticOpenFinance glossary
---

# Gross negligence

> A serious failure of care by a payer that can shift losses from unauthorised payments onto them.

In EU and UK payment law, a payer who fails, intentionally or with gross negligence, to keep personalised security credentials safe or to meet other obligations for their payment instruments can bear the losses from unauthorised transactions. The law does not define the term precisely, and it is generally read as a significant degree of carelessness, well beyond ordinary negligence. Whether handing credentials to an agent could count is unsettled, which is one reason agent designs avoid credential sharing in favour of delegated tokens.

Related terms: [Unauthorised payment transaction](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/unauthorised-payment-transaction.md), [Consumer standard of caution](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/consumer-standard-of-caution.md), [Agent token](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/agent-token.md), [Access token](https://agenticopenfinance.com/glossary/access-token.md)