| Protocol | Owner | Live where | India verdict | Fit with our rails | Blocker | What we do |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACPAgentic Commerce Protocol | Stripe + OpenAI | US live · Sep '25 | Coming H2 '26 Transaction layer scaled back by OpenAI Mar '26. Discovery layer remains strategic. We ship both. |
UPI AutoPay, cards. No regulatory conflict. | None material. | ShipWe ship the India ACP discovery + checkout endpoint. Q3. |
| UCPUniversal Commerce Protocol | Google + Shopify | Global Jan '26 · IN Q3 '26 | Live Q3 '26 Shopify India rollout anchors it. Flipkart is one of 20+ endorsing partners. |
UPI native. Shopify MCP adapter path. | None material. | ShipWe ship UCP to Indian merchants before Shopify India rolls it out. |
| AP2Agent Payments Protocol | Google Wallet | Global · H1 '26 | Identity layer, portable Complements ACP and UCP, not either-or. |
Bridges agent identity across protocols. | None. | ShipWe contribute the India profile of AP2 to Google. We become the reference. |
| Mastercard Agent PayAggregator cohort | Mastercard | IN cohort · Feb '26 | Live now Cashfree, Juspay, PayU, Razorpay are in. We are not. |
Cards rail, India-ready. | Membership gap. | LeadWe lead the next phase of the cohort by July. |
| Visa TAPTrusted Agent Protocol | Visa | Global launch Oct '25 | Likely 2027 Visa India moves slower than Mastercard. |
Cards rail. Works once live. | Visa India timeline. | MonitorSandbox integration. Monitor monthly. |
| MPP IndiaMachine Payments Protocol | Tempo Labs + Stripe | Launched Mar '26 (Stripe + Tempo) | Adaptation only Base protocol is crypto. Adapt to stablecoin + UPI. |
Fit via Tempo bridge. Appendix E. | RBI stablecoin stance. | ShipWe ship the India stablecoin bridge reference. First in market. |
| Cashfree HereAgent checkout | Cashfree | IN · Feb '26 | Competitor live Proves the category. Different positioning. |
Same rails. Not a partner. | — | MonitorNot an integration. Competitive watch. |
| Razorpay MCPMerchant MCP server | Razorpay | IN · Apr '25 | Competitor live Consumer-first. We lead in B2B. |
Same protocol stack as ours. | — | MonitorNot an integration. Appendix D. |
| Pine Labs MCPOur merchant MCP | Pine Labs | IN · Aug '25 | Live · ours OpenAI's first Indian B2B payments partner. |
UPI, cards, BNPL, EMI native. | — | ShipExtends to ACP & UCP endpoints this half. |
| Stripe Commerce ProtocolAnnounced Feb '26 | Stripe | Unverified | Same as ACP ACP is the Stripe protocol. No separate launch expected. |
— | Announcement only. | SkipDo not build. Monitor only. |
| x402HTTP payment protocol | Coinbase | Global · crypto | Not India RBI has not approved crypto rails. |
— | Rails unavailable. | SkipDo not build. |
| Visa Intelligent CommerceFull stack agent | Visa | US · pilots | India 2027+ Visa has not prioritised India. |
Would fit cards rail once live. | Timeline. | MonitorWatch quarterly. |
RBI Notification 12898 (effective April 2026) allows passkeys as the authentication factor. User proves identity once with their device. Pine Labs holds the signed authorization.
Agent X can spend up to ₹5,000 with merchant Y per week. User sets the rule. Vault enforces it. Covered by NPCI's SBMD primitive (branded as UPI Reserve Pay) for UPI, and by Mastercard & Visa token rails for cards.
Same vault serves ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and any future agent that implements ACP or UCP. Users do not rebuild trust for every agent.
Razorpay is consumer-checkout. Cashfree is session-based. Juspay is orchestration. None are building a cross-merchant agent-consent vault. We are. Our own MCP today is subscription-heavy — 22 of 31 tools. Agent-initiated one-shot commerce requires a different primitive. That primitive is the omni-vault. Agent collections — "agent collects from another agent" — is the one gap nobody else has filled. Appendix F-1.
One API. Any Indian merchant agent-ready in under four hours ⓘ. UPI, cards, BNPL, EMI behind a single endpoint. ACP and UCP compliant.
Agent-to-agent payment rail. Closes the gap no competitor has filled. Merchant agent collects from consumer agent. Pre-funded, consent-gated, ACP-compliant. See Appendix F-1.
Passkey-backed consent. Per-agent per-merchant rule engine. SBMD-native on UPI. Tokenized on Mastercard and Visa. The moat.
AP2-compatible identity, portable across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity. Any agent that asks to debit authenticates through Pine Labs.
Catalogue schema, inventory stubs, delivery webhooks. Everything a mid-market Indian merchant needs. Free.
Regulatory build. Per-agent wallet with pre-loaded INR. QuickFin PPI license does not cover per-agent wallets today. Regulatory work with RBI and NPCI required. We are the Indian entity driving this conversation.
Corporate agent payments. Finance sets rules. AI agents pay vendors, reconcile invoices, manage subscriptions. B2B version of the consumer vault.
NPCI working group seat active. We author the reference implementation and submit for ratification. Every Indian PSP that follows implements our spec.
Credit Plus evolves. Real-time trust decisioning on agent-initiated transactions. Agent says "buy," Pine Labs decides in 200ms, transaction completes.
Global agent pays Indian merchant. INR settlement. Stablecoin bridge where legal. Inbound travel, diaspora remittance, cross-border SaaS. Appendix E.
Pine Labs publishes the open standard for agentic commerce on UPI. Co-authored with NPCI. Every PSP that supports agents implements our spec.
Pine Labs leads India agentic commerce. We ship the protocol. We ship the vault. We ship the roadmap on Slide 7.
We set the pace, not react to it.
Pine Labs Agent Checkout v1. Vault sandbox. Agent Identity Bridge. Merchant Accelerator Kit.
Re-allocated capacity. No net-new hiring until we have merchants live.
Tanya opens five merchant conversations. Umang opens NPCI, Mastercard, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic.
We go to market with a roadmap, not a request.
Passkeys permitted as authentication factor. Removes OTP friction for authenticated-agent transactions under pre-set limits. This is the unlock for the omni-token vault.
Reserve-and-debit pattern for delegated transactions. Built on the SBMD primitive (Single Block Multiple Debits). User blocks an amount for future agent-initiated debits without re-authentication. Foundational for agentic UPI.
16–21 Feb 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi. Mastercard completed the first authenticated agentic commerce transaction in India at the summit. Aggregators on stage: Cashfree, Juspay, PayU, Razorpay. Issuers: Axis Bank, RBL Bank. Merchants: Swiggy, Instamart, Vi, Tira, Zepto. Pine Labs was not included. We close this gap in 6 to 8 weeks.
RBI has not approved native crypto rails. Stablecoin bridges to UPI may be tolerated but are not endorsed. MPP India thesis (Appendix E) depends on this.
| Company | Lead position | Agent strategy so far | Weakness | Our posture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
RazorpayPublic · consumer-led |
Consumer checkout. Largest agent-ready merchant base on day one. | MCP shipped Apr '25. NPCI+OpenAI+BigBasket pilot Oct '25 (still private beta). Claude+Zomato+Swiggy+Zepto Feb '26. Inside Mastercard cohort. Replit India payments partner Feb '26 — first vibe-coding PG in India. | Thin on B2B, low developer trust outside checkout. | Do not chase consumer. Compete on B2B and developer tooling. |
CashfreePrivate · PSP |
PSP-first. Agent checkout product (Here) live early. | Agentic Payments launched at GFF Oct '25. Cashfree Here launched 17 Feb 2026 at India AI Impact Summit with Mastercard + Swiggy. Live on ChatGPT + Claude. Inside Mastercard cohort. | Smaller merchant footprint. No B2B depth. | Partner conversations open. Not a competitor on B2B. |
JuspayPrivate · orchestration |
Orchestration layer for enterprise checkout. | Co-author with NPCI. Inside Mastercard cohort. | Not building merchant-facing agent tooling. | Interop discussions. They orchestrate; we are the vault. |
PaytmPublic · consumer-led |
Consumer super-app with merchant + fintech stack. | Perplexity India partnership (Feb 2025). Not yet an agentic product. | No agent-native rails shipped. Cohort seat unclear. | Monitor quarterly. No overlap on B2B. |
Pine LabsPublic · us |
B2B leader. 1.05M merchants. Developer stack (Setu, Plural). Public since Nov 2025 IPO. OpenAI's first Indian B2B partner (Razorpay was first Indian payments partner Oct '25). | Two MCP servers live since Aug '25. API Execution server (31 tools: 22 Subscriptions, 5 Payment Links, 3 Orders, 1 Checkout, 1 UPI). Code Generation server (20+ tools). Supported on Claude Desktop and VS Code. Not yet on Cursor, Lovable, Bolt, v0. Setu agentic bill payments live on Claude + ChatGPT since Dec '25. OpenAI B2B partnership Feb '26. ACP & UCP handlers in plan. Omni-token vault as moat. | Not yet in Mastercard cohort. Closing in 6–8 weeks. | Lead B2B. Integrate everywhere. Own the vault. |
| Walmart + OpenAIGlobal cautionary data | Instant Checkout pilot inside ChatGPT, Oct 2025. | 3× lower conversion vs walmart.com direct (Wired, Mar 2026). ~12 Shopify merchants activated out of millions. | Validates B2B-first posture. Consumer ACP transaction layer underperforms today. | Data point, not competitor. Reinforces our sequencing: infra first, consumer later. |
| Company | Agent checkout Consumer → Merchant Agent |
Agent collections Merchant Agent → Consumer Agent |
Consent vault | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
RazorpayConsumer-led |
Live — Claude, Zomato, Swiggy, Zepto. Mastercard cohort. | Not shipped. No public roadmap. | No vault primitive. | Focused on checkout. Collections gap open. |
CashfreePSP-first |
Live — Cashfree Here. ChatGPT + Claude. Mastercard cohort. | Not shipped. | No vault primitive. | Session-based only. No agent-to-agent primitive. |
JuspayOrchestration |
Partial — orchestration layer, not merchant-facing. | Not in scope. | No vault primitive. | They orchestrate. Collections is structurally out of scope. |
StripeGlobal · developer-first |
Live globally — Stripe Agent Toolkit. No India UPI. | Not shipped for India. | Partial — Stripe Connect, not agent-native. | No India UPI presence. Collections gap open. |
Pine LabsPublic · us |
In build — Agent Checkout v1, June 2026. | In plan — Agent Collections, June 2026. ACP + UCP compliant. | In build — Omni-vault sandbox, July 2026. | First mover on collections + vault. The gap we own. |
Consumer agent browses, selects, and authorizes payment to a merchant agent. Standard ACP pattern. Razorpay, Cashfree, and Pine Labs all building here. Not a differentiator — required to compete.
Any agent must authenticate through the Pine Labs vault before debiting. Per-agent, per-merchant rules. Passkey consent. The authorization layer that makes Rails 1 and 3 safe and auditable. MoltPe reference covers this surface.
Merchant agent initiates a collect request. Consumer agent authenticates and authorizes debit from their pre-funded vault balance. Closes subscription, recurring, and B2B settlement for AI-native commerce. No competitor has shipped this primitive. MoltPe reference covers this surface.