Model Context Protocol (MCP)
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for connecting AI models to outside tools and data. Instead of a custom integration per assistant, a service runs one MCP server exposing its capabilities as tools; any MCP-capable agent — a coding assistant, a chat product, a custom workflow — can discover and call them. Introduced by Anthropic in late 2024, it has become the default way agent platforms reach external systems, payments included: an MCP server can make accounts, transfers, and approvals directly operable by an agent.
By Raj Lad, Founder & CTOLast updated August 2026
For payments, MCP defines the reach of an agent, not the safety of it. The protocol carries tool calls and results; it does not screen counterparties, cap spending, or decide when a person needs to look. Those controls have to live below the integration surface — in the account, the credential scope, and the platform’s compliance layer — because an agent connected over MCP is exactly as powerful as the tools and authority it is handed. The practical questions when evaluating an MCP payment surface are the same as for any API: what can this credential do, what bounds it, and what record does each call leave.
Infinite’s integration surface is its API, and the controls sit below it — at the account and network layer — so an agent-initiated instruction runs the same screening, monitoring, and audit trail as a human one no matter what protocol delivered it.
Frequently asked questions
How do AI agents use MCP to make payments?
A payment platform runs an MCP server exposing operations — check a balance, create a payment, list pending approvals — as tools. The agent’s runtime connects with scoped credentials, and the model calls those tools inside its workflow. The server executes against the real API; the agent never handles raw bank integrations.
Is MCP safe for moving money?
MCP is transport, not control — it is as safe as the credential scope and the account-layer bounds behind the tools. A funded account caps exposure, vetted counterparties bound recipients, and screening on every instruction judges each payment; none of that comes from the protocol.
Who created the Model Context Protocol?
Anthropic open-sourced MCP in November 2024. Adoption since has crossed vendors — major model providers, IDEs, and agent frameworks support it — which is what made it the common way to expose tools, payments included, to any agent.
See how it works on the network.
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