New · AI Agents
AI Agent Payments
Let AI work for you
Autonomously request and receive payments — your AI agents can transact on your behalf across any rail, any currency, any country. You stay in control. Your agent does the work.
What is AI Agent Payments?
A new primitive for the agentic economy — give your AI a payment identity and let it settle transactions without human hand-holding.
AI Agent Payments is an extension of AfriLink Pay Identity designed for software agents. Every agent gets its own @handle — a permanent, auditable payment identity that can request money from customers, receive payouts from platforms, and settle expenses with suppliers, all without a human approving each transaction individually.
Agents operate within rules you define: spending limits, allowed counterparties, permitted currencies, and permitted rails. They cannot exceed those boundaries — the platform enforces the rules at the payment layer, not just in the application layer.
Every agent transaction is logged, attributed to the agent's identity, and visible in your merchant dashboard in real time. You can pause or revoke any agent instantly — all pending transactions are halted within seconds.
How it works
Five steps from zero to a fully autonomous payment agent operating on your behalf.
Create a merchant account
Register your business or developer account on AfriLink Pay. Your merchant identity becomes the owner of all agents you create.
Register an agent
Give your agent a unique handle, display name, and description. The agent gets its own Pay Identity — a permanent, auditable payment address.
@myapp_billing_agent
Set spending rules
Define the limits within which your agent operates — per-transaction maximum, daily cap, allowed currencies, and which counterparties it can pay or request from.
Issue an API key
Generate a scoped API key tied to the agent identity. Your software uses this key to initiate payments on behalf of the agent. The key cannot exceed the agent's rules.
Monitor and revoke
Watch every transaction in real time from your merchant dashboard. Pause or revoke the agent with one click — takes effect in under 5 seconds globally.
Safety Controls
Agents are powerful. The controls are more powerful.
Every AI agent on AfriLink Pay operates inside a permission boundary set by you. The payment layer enforces these rules independently of your application code — a bug in your agent cannot cause it to overspend or pay an unauthorized recipient.
💰
Spending limits
Set a per-transaction maximum and a rolling daily cap. Attempts to exceed either are rejected at the API layer before any money moves.
✅
Allowlist counterparties
Restrict the agent to a fixed set of approved recipients or payers. Transactions to or from non-listed handles are automatically blocked.
🌍
Currency and rail restrictions
Specify which currencies and payment rails the agent may use. Block international transfers entirely or restrict to a single rail for cost control.
⏱️
Rate limiting
Cap the number of transactions per hour or per day. Protects against runaway loops — a malfunctioning agent cannot drain funds through rapid-fire transactions.
⚡
Instant revocation
Pause or permanently revoke an agent in one click. All in-flight payment requests are cancelled within 5 seconds. No phone call required.
📋
Full audit trail
Every transaction initiated by an agent is logged with the agent's identity, the API key used, and a tamper-evident timestamp. Immutable for 7 years.
Use Cases
From invoicing assistants to autonomous marketplaces — agents work wherever payments do.
E-commerce
Automated supplier payments
Let your inventory agent pay suppliers automatically when stock drops below threshold — no human approval needed for routine reorders within your set limits.
Freelance platforms
Autonomous milestone payouts
Your platform's AI verifies milestone completion and triggers the payout to the freelancer's handle — instant settlement, zero manual review for standard cases.
Gig economy
Per-trip driver earnings
A ride-hailing agent settles driver earnings after each completed trip, split correctly across zones and surge multipliers, without batch processing delays.
SaaS billing
AI invoice collection
Your billing agent sends payment requests directly to customer handles, follows up on outstanding invoices, and marks them settled when payment lands — all autonomously.
Savings groups
Automated Susu collection
An agent collects rotating savings contributions on schedule, confirms receipt, and initiates the payout to the cycle's beneficiary — the entire Susu runs without a human coordinator.
Marketplace
Escrow and settlement
Your marketplace agent holds funds in escrow, releases to the seller on buyer confirmation, and refunds automatically if the dispute window expires without resolution.
Agent Identity
Every agent is a first-class citizen of the AfriLink Pay network — auditable, revocable, and owned by you.
Agent limits
Per transaction≤ GHS 5,000
Daily cap≤ GHS 50,000
Allowed railsMTN MoMo, Ecobank
CurrencyGHS only
Status● Active
What the agent identity gives you
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A permanent
@handle that payers and platforms can address payments to
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Ownership attribution — every transaction is traceable to you, the merchant
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Scoped API keys that only allow what the agent's rules permit
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Separate transaction history for each agent — clean books, no mixing
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One-click revocation that takes effect in under 5 seconds
POST
Register an agent identity
{
"handle": "myapp_billing_agent",
"display_name": "Billing Agent",
"limits": {
"per_tx_max": 5000,
"daily_cap": 50000,
"currencies": ["GHS"],
"rails": ["mtn_momo_gh", "ecobank_gh"]
}
}
{
"agent_id": "agt_3Qk7mP...",
"handle": "myapp_billing_agent",
"api_key": "afl_agent_sk_...",
"pay_url": "https://afrilinkpay.com/pay/myapp_billing_agent"
}
POST
Agent requests payment from a customer
{
"from_handle": "customer_amara",
"amount": 2500,
"currency": "GHS",
"reference": "Invoice #INV-2026-0441",
"idempotency_key": "billing_20260601_inv441"
}
{
"request_id": "req_9Yz4nW...",
"status": "pending_approval",
"expires_at": "2026-06-02T14:00:00Z"
}
Owner approval required
Ready to automate your payments?
Register your merchant account, create your first agent, and have it transacting in under 10 minutes. All agents require owner approval — your rules, your control, always.
Register Your First Agent →
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know before handing a payment card to your AI.
Can an agent spend money without my knowledge?
No. Every agent operates strictly within the limits you set when you register it. The payment layer enforces these limits independently of your application — even if there is a bug in your agent's code, it cannot exceed the per-transaction or daily cap you defined. You also receive real-time notifications for every transaction, and you can pause or revoke the agent at any time with instant effect.
What happens if I revoke an agent — do pending transactions still go through?
No. Revocation takes effect within 5 seconds globally. Any payment request that has not yet been fully settled is cancelled immediately. Funds that were already settled before revocation remain with their recipients — revocation is not a reversal mechanism, it is a forward-stop control.
How is an AI agent different from a regular merchant handle?
A regular merchant handle is operated by a human who approves each transaction. An AI agent handle has its own scoped API key and spending rule set, allowing software to initiate transactions autonomously within those rules. The agent's identity is linked to your merchant account — you remain the accountable owner. Agents are labelled as such on their public pay pages so counterparties always know they are interacting with an agent.
What currencies and countries do agents support?
Agents support the same 54 countries and 200+ rails available to all AfriLink Pay merchants. You can restrict your agent to specific currencies or rails — for example, GHS only, or MTN MoMo Ghana only — or you can allow the full network. Restriction is set at agent creation and can be updated from your merchant dashboard without re-issuing the API key.
Can a customer tell they are paying an AI agent?
Yes — by design. Agent pay pages display a clear "AI Agent" badge alongside the owner merchant's name. Transparency is a requirement of the AfriLink Pay Agent programme. Customers always know who owns the agent and can verify the owner's identity through the agent's public profile before authorising any payment.
How are agent transactions handled for compliance and reporting?
Every agent transaction is logged with the agent's handle, the API key used, the counterparty, the amount, the rail, and a tamper-evident timestamp. These records are immutable and retained for 7 years in line with African financial regulation requirements. Your merchant dashboard provides a per-agent transaction report exportable as CSV or via the reporting API. Your tax and compliance team can access agent-specific ledgers independently of your main merchant ledger.