Form3 Unveils Agentic AI Infrastructure to Secure and Accelerate Global Bank Payment Operations

Form3 has launched an AI-enabled payments platform, transitioning its infrastructure from cloud-native to AI agent-ready. This development allows banks and fintechs to integrate AI agents into their operations with strict controls, addressing the growing need for speed and data interpretation in a landscape increasingly dominated by continuous, tokenised payments and digital assets.

What was announced

The new architecture introduces a Model Context Protocol (MCP) adaptor for the Form3 platform, providing a standardised method for AI platforms and agents to connect with external tools and data. This initial phase focuses on making existing payment information discoverable and usable by authorised AI applications through the API, while ensuring the AI remains outside the actual payment flow. By utilising Natural Language Processing (NLP), human operators and AI agents can retrieve and interpret key information to investigate issues and resolve manual workloads.

The platform is designed for Tier 1 banks and major fintechs, including current clients such as Barclays, Santander, JP Morgan, Klarna, Mollie, and SumUp. It serves as a financial fabric connecting to payment rails across the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America to facilitate seamless instant payments. To maintain security and resilience, the AI layer is read-only, meaning agents have no ability to initiate changes or payments. This focus on retrieving and interpreting information rather than making payment decisions provides financial institutions with a controlled entry point into agentic AI. The underlying payments continue to be processed through the same secure infrastructure already utilised by hundreds of leading financial institutions, with the new AI layer wrapped in existing data and security controls.

"Our starting point is controlled access rather than unrestricted autonomy, coupled with a read-only approach, which means that agents can view but not change data. This is vital to prevent agents going rogue and initiating payments without permission. Perhaps most crucially, the security protocols surrounding the AI interface match the enterprise-grade standards of our existing payments platform, which is already trusted by Tier 1 banks across the UK, Europe and the US. Agents have the power to add value to the payments process and are the logical next step, but a good governance and trust must prevail."

Edward Wilde, Chief Technology Officer at Form3.

The companies involved

Form3 is a London-based fintech specialist that provides account-to-account (A2A) payment technology on a global scale. Founded with a focus on cloud-native, API-first architecture, the company has positioned itself as a critical layer of infrastructure for the banking sector, moving away from legacy on-premise systems. The firm is led by Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mike Walters and Chief Technology Officer Edward Wilde.

In the current market, Form3 acts as a "financial fabric," providing the underlying technology that allows institutions to connect to various domestic and international payment rails. Its client list includes some of the world’s largest financial entities, reflecting its status as a trusted provider of resilient, high-volume payment processing. The company has avoided the traditional route of becoming a bank itself, instead focusing on the "plumbing" of the financial system, which has allowed it to scale across multiple jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has tracked Form3’s steady expansion and strategic shifts over the past year. In early 2026, the company announced it was expanding its strategic partnership with SumUp to facilitate real-time SEPA payments for small businesses. This followed news that the firm had added European fintech Mollie to its growing client roster. The company’s industry standing was further cemented when it was recognised during the FF Awards 2025. Additionally, Form3’s capital position and domestic influence were bolstered in late 2025 when it secured a strategic investment from Nationwide, highlighting the appetite among traditional lenders for modernised payment rails.

What this means

The move toward "agent-ready" infrastructure signals a shift in the fintech arms race from simple automation to intelligent data orchestration. By adopting the Model Context Protocol, Form3 is betting on a future where interoperability between AI models and financial data is the standard. This puts significant pressure on legacy core banking providers who struggle with data silos and lack the API maturity to support real-time AI interrogation. The "read-only" constraint is a pragmatic response to the industry's deep-seated fear of "rogue" AI, suggesting that while the sector is ready for AI-assisted operations, it remains far from trusting autonomous agents with the keys to the vault.