London Fintech Podcast
00:42:55 · Rohit Mishra
[00:42:55] S0: It's a it's a it's a million dollar question, Tony. We... You should you should And then don't question, Pat. We should be... And probably much more than a million, I would imagine. We're working through this here transparently. There's a lot of discussion here between merchant platforms like us, card networks, and issuers about how how do we think about dispute and liability in this world. They've... Because we want to make sure that everybody, all all part... All actors in the ecosystem, agents, inclusive agents, they're doing the right job... Work to collect the... To surface the right mandate and and consent from the user, and then part... And that mandate and consent is available to to merchants, to issuers, to networks to make sure that if it... If that transaction ends up in being... Leading to a dispute, the merchant is enabled to make sure that they can respond appropriately. And the same thing applies from the buyer side. Right? Like, just because I bought this thing from my my agent and not on the web shouldn't mean that I don't have any protections. So we've been working through this on how how the dispute is portioned. Like, the reality, Tony, is that at the end of the day, in in many cases, disputes end up with merchants. Right? Like, if you you you buy something, you don't like it, or or you think it was not you, somebody used your card without your permission, you'll run a dispute and it will show up on the merchant's door. And that's why and that's why, you know, as a... Shopify, we we do a lot of work with consumers. We do a lot of work with merchants. Our... We are we are trying to do the best job of balancing interests here, protecting our merchants, but also making sure that consumers feel empowered to use agents more and more to do their transactions.
00:44:47 · Tony Clark, Rohit Mishra
[00:44:47] S1: Yeah. And that's a question probably gonna keep our friends of the legal profession busy for a while. Mean, there's gonna be lots of interesting cases, I'm sure, in the in the coming months. [00:44:55] S0: Yes. [00:44:55] S1: You also talked about AgenTik tokens and the work you're doing with your partners on that. And I I did want to ask you about that. So the, you know, the settlement layer, for want of a better description, in the actual value exchange in the payments process. AgenTik tokens, are we talking about stablecoins? Are we talking about something else? So what do you really mean by that?
00:45:17 · Rohit Mishra
[00:45:17] S0: Yeah. So AgenTik tokens are just a new form of... So of of... Are you familiar with, like, network tokens? These these are... Instead of when you do a transaction now, in most cases, you go to a website, you put your credit card, your 16 digit card number in, or you use a wallet. What happens mostly now, I would say, like, in greater than 50% of the transactions on the Internet and obviously on Shopify, is we are not sending your card numbers around anymore. The 16 digit card number, that's not going anywhere. When you gave us that card number, we work with networks and other partners here to provision a Shopify or a merchant specific token that represents your card, but it's not actually that card number. And then in all future transactions, we are then using that token. So that is that is network token. Agentic token takes that same concept and add... To... Adds to it by saying not only what card it is representing, but which... What agent what agent is using this card. What is the what is the... When Tony was buying his his Rolex on his favorite agent, what did he say to the agent? What con... What did he... So how... What information can the agent pass through to to the merchant, to the issuers? And agentic token takes the same concepts of network tokens but adds more adds more information to it. And the goal here remains the same, which is how do you make sure that the card is protected, the information is secure, it's not floating around for bad actors to abuse. But at the same time, the protections that both merchants and buyers expect, they also, they continue to remain applicable.
00:47:03 · Tony Clark, Rohit Mishra
[00:47:03] S1: So presumably... And that that is new detail for me. The network token would also carry some details of the, maybe it doesn't, of the customer. Because I think what you're saying on the on the agentic token that you've got some details about the agent. The agent has the purchase. [00:47:18] S0: Yeah. So the network token generally... The general network tokens all carry information about the card instrument itself. This is the card, and it was tokenized by Shopify or this merchant on Shopify. That's what network tokens do. Agentic tokens take that same concept, but they're more richer. They carry that information, but then now they also carry information about this agent on this transaction. And so now you're provisioning that token per agent and per transaction, so it has a lot more a lot more richness to it that that that provides the right level of information to to different actors in the ecosystem. [00:47:56] S1: And is is that there for risk management? The additional [00:48:00] S0: So this this this additional information, this this is helpful from a risk liability management if that transaction then turns into a dispute, making sure that the different actors have the right information to work on. We're working with... Like, again, like like with most things, it's not finished. There's a bunch of things that we are working with our network friends to make sure that agentic tokens continue to evolve and provide a great consumer experience as well as a great merchant experience, but it's a step in the right direction.
00:48:00 · Rohit Mishra, Tony Clark
[00:48:00] S0: So this this this additional information, this this is helpful from a risk liability management if that transaction then turns into a dispute, making sure that the different actors have the right information to work on. We're working with... Like, again, like like with most things, it's not finished. There's a bunch of things that we are working with our network friends to make sure that agentic tokens continue to evolve and provide a great consumer experience as well as a great merchant experience, but it's a step in the right direction. [00:48:29] S1: So this is on the Fintech Podcast, and our audience spread is... Very much includes the institutions. So... And I don't know whether you've really thought about this particularly, but... Because you're sort of business to consumer, business to business, all sectors, but just bringing it into the world of investment perhaps, markets, banking, insurance. We've been talking about exponential growth in Agenci Commerce. We've been talking about the very many variants on payments rails and the threat landscape and the controls around the Genetic Commerce and this whole space is just growing at pace. Any thoughts on what this might mean if I'm a founder or a senior leader perhaps in one of the more traditional financial institutions out there and I'm wondering well what does this all mean for me? It may or may not be working in the payments department where I think it might be more apparent, but I'm curious, you know, how you see everything overlaying on the financial sector.
00:48:29 · Tony Clark, Rohit Mishra
[00:48:29] S1: So this is on the Fintech Podcast, and our audience spread is... Very much includes the institutions. So... And I don't know whether you've really thought about this particularly, but... Because you're sort of business to consumer, business to business, all sectors, but just bringing it into the world of investment perhaps, markets, banking, insurance. We've been talking about exponential growth in Agenci Commerce. We've been talking about the very many variants on payments rails and the threat landscape and the controls around the Genetic Commerce and this whole space is just growing at pace. Any thoughts on what this might mean if I'm a founder or a senior leader perhaps in one of the more traditional financial institutions out there and I'm wondering well what does this all mean for me? It may or may not be working in the payments department where I think it might be more apparent, but I'm curious, you know, how you see everything overlaying on the financial sector. [00:49:36] S0: Yeah. Absolutely. I think what my my single piece of advice that I hope viewers have take from this [00:49:45] S1: is advice. Go on. Is