Fime Launches FACT Framework to Verify AI Agent Purchases in Agentic Commerce Era

As agentic commerce accelerates from concept to live infrastructure, payments testing and certification firm Fime has launched FACT — the Framework for Agentic Commerce Trust — designed to verify whether AI shopping agents actually execute what consumers asked for at the moment of purchase, not just when the agent was first approved.

Fime CEO Lionel Grosclaude warned the industry faces a fundamental trust problem: a successful payment no longer proves the consumer got what they meant to buy. With the agentic commerce market projected at US$3 trillion to US$5 trillion by 2030, even a 1% dispute rate could represent tens of billions in contested transactions. Consumer enthusiasm is high — 73% globally are open to AI agents shopping on their behalf, rising to 85% in Singapore and 95% in China, according to Worldpay research.

The FACT framework operates as a neutral trust layer that sits outside the major platforms and payment networks — OpenAI's Instant Checkout, Google's AP2, Visa Intelligent Commerce, and Mastercard Agent Pay. When a shopping agent requests a purchase, the merchant calls on FACT to access the original human prompt and compare it against what the agent is requesting. If the intent matches, the transaction proceeds; if not, the merchant can push back before the item reaches the basket. Unlike Know Your Agent checks that only verify an agent at onboarding, FACT performs intent verification at every transaction, addressing the risk that agents may adapt and behave differently over time.

The framework also preserves a verifiable audit trail of every intent check, showing what the consumer authorised, what the agent requested, and whether the transaction matched. This proof-of-compliance approach aligns with Singapore's FEAT Principles — Fairness, Ethics, Accountability, and Transparency — which expect demonstrable accountability from AI systems handling financial transactions. Fime, which operates a significant APAC hub in Singapore, designed FACT to be tunable to the rules of each market.

Why it matters for Singapore: With 85% of Singapore consumers already open to AI-driven shopping, the city-state is a natural early adopter market for agentic commerce. If the technology takes off here — and all signals suggest it will — frameworks like FACT could become the de facto trust infrastructure, giving merchants, banks, and consumers a common standard for verifying that AI agents stay within their mandate. Singapore's role as a regional fintech hub means the standards adopted here often influence regulatory thinking across Southeast Asia.