CrediMax and Mastercard explore AI shopping agents for Bahrain merchants

CrediMax is working with Mastercard to explore agentic commerce for merchants in Bahrain. The first phase centres on Mastercard’s Agent Suite for Merchants, which places AI shopping agents on a merchant’s own website.

Shoppers can use those agents at each stage of a purchase. They can help someone find a product, complete payment and obtain support after the sale. The project will run on Mastercard Merchant Cloud, which brings together payment, fraud, security and data tools for merchants. Mastercard Gateway will process payments.

CrediMax and Mastercard said CrediMax is among the first in Bahrain to work with Mastercard on this type of AI shopping.

Andrew Hocking, CrediMax’s chief executive, said AI agents are becoming part of the purchasing journey. Merchants should be helped to “respond with confidence” and turn opportunities into growth, he said.

Saud Swar, Mastercard’s country manager for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Other Levant, said the collaboration aligns Mastercard’s proposition with the “operational needs and commercial priorities” of local businesses in the Kingdom.

operational needs and commercial priorities

Mastercard said every AI agent in its Agent Pay system receives a digital ID that can be checked and approved. An agent must act within rules set by the shopper. Agents in Agent Pay use agentic tokens that keep payments inside the shopper’s limits, and the tokens show shoppers which agent made a purchase and where.

Putting an agent inside a merchant’s site moves identity checks and spending limits into the storefront itself. The agentic token becomes the credential a merchant can trace, tied to a named agent and to instructions the shopper controls.

CrediMax and Mastercard said the work could serve as a model for merchants, payment providers and financial firms across the region. They said it may later expand to more uses and markets.