# Brickken CEO Says AI Agents Need Separate Authority to Move Money By Simon Yoon Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/42117 Published: 2026-10-27T23:21:38.000Z Updated: 2026-10-27T23:21:38.000Z Section: Technology > Brickken CEO and co-founder Edwin Mata’s warning follows a Mastercard pilot in which an AI agent made nine digital-service payments under a business-approved budget. Brickken CEO and co-founder Edwin Mata said access to financial information should not authorize AI agents to move money or invest, as Mastercard demonstrated a budget-limited agent making digital-service purchases. “Permission to read a balance should not automatically allow an agent to transfer funds, buy an investment or commit a customer to an obligation,” Mata wrote Monday, Oct. 26. His comment distinguishes viewing account information from having authority to act on it. On Oct. 20, Mastercard demonstrated Agent Pay for Machines at Cloudflare Connect and opened early access to APIs, tools and documentation for developers. In the demonstration, marketing agency Hype assigned an AI agent a campaign task and a set budget. Mastercard did not disclose the budget’s dollar amount. The agent made nine payments to two merchants: one for social media research from AIsa and eight for images generated through Cloudflare AI Gateway. The agent used digitally signed payment vouchers within its approved spending limit. Voucher activity took place off-chain, and providers can combine vouchers for later redemption. Coinbase Developer Platform supplied wallet infrastructure, while Base handled on-chain settlement. The demonstration covered digital-service purchases. It did not show an agent buying securities, making investment decisions or transferring funds from a customer bank account. The payment flow therefore does not establish that the pilot can authorize those actions. The question overlaps with earlier [calls for tailored AI agent safeguards](). Mastercard describes Agent Pay for Machines as a pilot that is not commercially available. Developers can use the early-stage resources to build and test with the system. ## Links in this article - [calls for tailored AI agent safeguards](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/32929)