<!-- Source: https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/agentic-payments -->

[Glossary](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary) Agentic payments

# What are agentic payments?

Agentic payments

Agentic payments are transfers an AI agent originates. The agent decides to pay, then calls your API or MCP. The ledger does not grow a new object for that. The agent is a client. It still needs a mandate, a unique reference, and the same queue and locks as a human click. What changes is how sloppy the caller can be.

## How do agentic payments work?

A user or a policy grants an agent a spend path: this wallet, this ceiling, these destinations. The agent picks an amount and a counterparty, then posts. Your app should write the reference before the model speaks. If the tool times out, the retry uses the same key. Two tools in one turn must not invent two keys for one intent.

## Agentic payments vs MCP

MCP is how the agent talks to tools. Agentic payments are the money movement that talk produced. You can have MCP that only reads. You can have agentic payments over a plain SDK. Do not require MCP to call the product “agentic.” Require a who, a why, and a reference.

## What breaks first?

Retries without a key, two agents spending the same wallet, and a hold the human never saw. Queueing and distributed locks stop the double apply. They do not stop an agent you over-permissioned. Put the mandate in your app. Put the movement in the book.

## How it works with Blnk

Post the same way you post any transfer. Create the reference in your worker or tool layer, not in the model’s prose. Link the wallet to an identity so you know who the agent acted for.

<!-- agent-payout.ts -->
```
await blnk.Transactions.create({
  precise_amount: 25000,
  precision: 100,
  reference: 'agent_pay_intent_8f21a4',
  currency: 'USD',
  source: 'customer_wallet_id',
  destination: '@PayoutUSD_ACH',
  description: 'Agent-originated payout',
  inflight: true,
  meta_data: {
    origin: 'agent',
    agent_id: 'agt_12',
    intent_id: 'intent_8f21a4',
    customer_id: 'cus_8f21a4',
  },
});
```

The post still goes through the [queue](https://docs.blnkfinance.com/transactions/transaction-lifecycle). See [Cloud MCP](https://docs.blnkfinance.com/cloud/integrations/mcp) if the agent calls Blnk directly.

Related terms

-   [MCP](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/mcp)
-   [Queuing](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/queuing)
-   [Idempotency](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/idempotency)
-   [Identity](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/identity)
-   [Reference](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/reference)