Elavon CEO tells that trust must come before speed in agent payments

Wally Mlynarski, chief executive of Elavon, spoke at the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas last week. Elavon works with card payments for merchants and is part of US Bank. Mlynarski tells that the industry must put safety and trust before speed in agentic commerce, in which AI agents make payments for a customer. A fast start can cause bad results for consumers.

Two lessons

The first lesson is fraud. Mlynarski tells that the industry tried to stop fraud for 25 years and made all the errors. The next lesson is cost. The mobile wallet wars of the 2010s were about the economics, and agents add a new party to the chain.

The proof

The source gives no test results. Paze is a mobile wallet from Early Warning Services. Mlynarski tells that Paze can start pilots. 7 large US banks hold Early Warning Services.

What the others do

Meta added the Link wallet of Stripe to its agent Muse. Mlynarski tells that such tools do not think about safety. The heads of JPMorgan Chase and PNC tell of risk of liability when agents work for customers.

Insight: Banks may use liability to set the pace for agents

Citigroup and Bank of America limit external agents on accounts. American Express gives protection to a customer only if it registers the agent. At this time Elavon tells of trust first, and Paze can start pilots. This reads as banks that slow the market while their wallet can start pilots, and the one that holds the liability can set the rules. Banks can stop agents on accounts.