AI agents that search, compare and pay for consumers are reaching Türkiye: in December 2025 Garanti BBVA and Mastercard demonstrated an AI shopping assistant, due to launch later, and said this marked the first end-to-end agentic commerce transaction in Türkiye’s banking sector. As of October 2026, no Turkish or EU payment text we reviewed has rules for AI agents; agent checkout runs on rules written for people: payment consent under Law No. 6493 and the TCMB Regulation, representation under the Turkish Code of Obligations, distance-selling rules and KVKK, plus, for EU users, the AI Act’s Article 50 transparency duty, applicable since 2 August 2026.
What agentic commerce is, and what the card schemes are building
The consumer sets a goal (“best-reviewed running shoes under TRY 4,000”); the agent searches, compares, checks out and pays with a credential the consumer gave it, so software exercising judgement sits between instruction and payment. Card schemes are building rails: Visa Intelligent Commerce (30 April 2025) describes “AI-Ready Cards” that replace card details with tokenised credentials and confirm that the consumer’s chosen agent may act for it, with consumer-set spending limits; Mastercard’s Agent Pay (29 April 2025) introduces “Mastercard Agentic Tokens” and will require trusted AI agents to be “registered and verified”. These are scheme programmes, not law, but in our view the token, the limits and the agent’s identity are the facts on which consent will be judged.
Payment consent under Law No. 6493 and the TCMB rules
Law No. 6493 leaves the parties’ rights and obligations to a TCMB regulation (Art. 12(3)). Under that Regulation, the payer consents “in accordance with the method and procedure agreed with the payment service provider”, which may also be done through the payee or a payment initiation service provider (Art. 52(1)); a transaction not approved by the agreed method is deemed unauthorised (Art. 52(3)). A spending limit may be agreed for a payment instrument (Art. 53(1)), and the customer must protect its security credentials and immediately report any transaction made without its will (Art. 53(4)). In our analysis the question is not whether an AI may consent, but whether what it did matches the agreed method.
For payment and e-money institutions, the TCMB’s information systems Communiqué makes strong authentication the rule for electronic-channel transactions unless the rules expressly allow otherwise (Art. 10(8)), requires it when a standing payment instruction is given (Art. 10(11)), and puts the burden of proving authorisation on an institution that failed to offer it where required (Art. 10(14)). Banks follow the BDDK’s information systems regulation. For bank and credit cards, Law No. 6493 does not apply to matters governed by Law No. 5464 (Art. 24(1)), whose Article 16 obliges the cardholder to keep the card and codes safe.
Initiating a payment order for an account held at another provider is a payment service (Law No. 6493, Art. 12(1)(f)), and no one other than the TCMB and payment service providers (banks, payment and e-money institutions and PTT) may provide payment services (Art. 13). Technical services where the provider never owns the transferred funds are excluded (Art. 12(2)(ğ)). Which side an agent falls on depends on its design.
When the agent oversteps: authorised or unauthorised?
Under the Turkish Code of Obligations, acts of an authorised representative in the principal’s name and for its account bind the principal (Art. 40); the granting act sets the scope of authority (Art. 41), which the principal may restrict or revoke at any time (Art. 42); an unauthorised act binds the principal only if ratified (Art. 46), otherwise the other party may claim its loss from the unauthorised representative (Art. 47). Legal capacity belongs to human beings and legal persons (Turkish Civil Code Arts. 8 and 48).
Our analysis: software has no legal personality, so an AI agent cannot itself be a “representative”. Either the agent is a tool transmitting the consumer’s own declaration (the error rules already apply where a declaration is wrongly transmitted by a messenger, interpreter or device, Art. 33), or the operating company is the representative acting through software, and Articles 46 and 47 run against it when the agent exceeds its mandate. We know of no Turkish court decision on this. Applied to payments:
| Scenario | Our provisional reading |
|---|---|
| Agent buys the wrong item, with the agreed credential and by the agreed method | Probably authorised towards the provider (Art. 52(1)); remedies lie in the sale contract and the agent’s terms |
| Payment not approved by the method agreed with the provider | Deemed unauthorised (Art. 52(3)); the provider must prove approval (Art. 54(2)). Whether exceeding an agreed spending limit has the same effect is arguable |
| Agent hijacked by a third party (e.g. through injected instructions) | Unauthorised; refund duty (Art. 54(3)). If the credential counts as lost, stolen or not safeguarded: payer bears up to TRY 250 for the 24 hours before notification, the whole loss for fraud, intent or gross negligence (Art. 54(4)-(5)); otherwise nothing if required authentication was not demanded (Art. 54(9)) |
| Consumer handed raw card numbers or passwords to an unvetted agent | Exposed to a gross negligence argument (Arts. 53(4), 54(5); for cards, Law No. 5464 Arts. 12 and 16) |
On deception-driven losses, see our AI-enabled payment fraud article.
The purchase itself: pre-contract information and withdrawal
Under Law No. 6502, the seller must inform the consumer before acceptance, including that confirming the order creates a payment obligation, and bears the burden of proof (Art. 48(2)). Under the Distance Contracts Regulation, key information must be shown immediately before the consumer takes on the payment obligation online (Art. 6(2)(a)); if the consumer’s confirmation of the pre-contract information is not obtained, “the contract is deemed not concluded” (Art. 7); a consumer not told that the order means a payment obligation is not bound by it (Art. 8(1)). Law No. 6563 adds that terms and total price must be visible before payment details are entered, and the order confirmed without delay (Art. 4). Our analysis: when an agent clicks through, it is unclear whether “the consumer” confirmed anything. Merchants should send pre-contract information to the consumer on a durable medium; agent operators should keep the confirmation trail.
The consumer remains the party, so the 14-day withdrawal right (Law No. 6502 Art. 48(4); Regulation Art. 9) survives an agent purchase. Unless the parties agree otherwise, it does not apply to date-bound accommodation, carriage of goods, car rental, food and drink supply or leisure contracts, or to services performed instantly in electronic form (Regulation Art. 15(1)(g), (ğ)).
KVKK: data minimisation and automated decisions
An agent reading email and purchase history must keep processing linked, limited and proportionate to its purpose (KVKK Art. 4(2)(ç)). The KVKK’s agentic AI guide (announced 12 March 2026) warns that agents may access more data than their goal requires, stresses purpose limitation and data minimisation, and calls for defining when human oversight steps in. Data subjects may object to an adverse result produced exclusively by automated analysis (Art. 11(1)(g)); whether an agent’s choice or an automated decline of an agent payment qualifies is untested, so we would design for it anyway.
The EU layer for Turkish firms serving EU consumers
Under PSD2, consent must be given “in the form agreed” (Art. 64(2)); strong customer authentication (SCA) applies when the payer initiates an electronic payment (Art. 97(1)(b)); unauthorised payments are refunded by the end of the following business day (Art. 73(1)); the payer bears at most EUR 50 for lost, stolen or misappropriated instruments absent fraud, intent or gross negligence (Art. 74(1)), and nothing where SCA was not required, unless it acted fraudulently (Art. 74(2)).
As of October 2026 the Payment Services Regulation (PSR) is not adopted: the final compromise text is dated 17 April 2026 (Council document 8221/26) and Parliament’s procedure file reads “Awaiting Council’s 1st reading position”. That text treats a transaction initiated by a third party “acting without the consent of the payment service user” as unauthorised (Art. 49(1a)), lets users set spending limits per payment instrument (Art. 51(1)) and requires an outsourcing agreement where a technical service provider provides and verifies SCA elements (Art. 87(1)). AI itself appears only as a fraud-monitoring tool (recital 103). Our PSD3 and PSR article covers the wider reform.
Under the AI Act, providers must ensure that AI systems intended to interact directly with natural persons inform them of that unless it is obvious (Art. 50(1)), from 2 August 2026 (Art. 113). The Digital Omnibus on AI (Regulation (EU) 2026/1744) left that date unchanged; its only Article 50 transition, to 2 December 2026, concerns the Article 50(2) marking duty for systems already on the market. The Consumer Rights Directive requires the consumer to “explicitly” acknowledge the payment obligation, typically via an “order with obligation to pay” button; otherwise the consumer is not bound (Art. 8(2)); from 19 June 2026 it also requires a “withdraw from contract here” function for contracts concluded through an online interface (Art. 11a, inserted by Directive (EU) 2023/2673).
Where to start
Design agent authority as a matrix (see agents, authority and liability), then:
- Mandate: what the agent may buy, from whom and up to what amount; keep date-bound bookings, instant digital services and anything irreversible propose-only.
- Spending limits: enforced at the payment instrument (Reg. Art. 53(1)), not only in the prompt.
- Credentials: agent-specific tokens set up with strong authentication; never raw card numbers or banking passwords.
- Logs: instruction, offer, pre-contract information, confirmation and authentication, kept through the 13-month correction window (Reg. Art. 54(1)) and no longer than KVKK allows.
- Liability in T&Cs: who refunds whom when the agent misreads an instruction, easy revocation of the mandate (TBK Art. 42; Reg. Art. 52(4)), a complaint route.
- Disclosure and licensing: Article 50 notices for EU users, and a written view on whether your flow is payment initiation or a technical service (see our fintech law hub).
Frequently asked questions
If my AI agent buys the wrong product, will my provider refund me?
Probably not as an unauthorised transaction if the agreed credential and method were used, because the TCMB Regulation ties consent to that method (Art. 52). In our reading, the routes are the withdrawal right, where available, and the agent provider’s terms.
Will the EU PSR require strong authentication for every agent payment?
The PSR is not yet adopted. In the April 2026 compromise text, SCA applies when the payer places an electronic payment order (Art. 85(1)(c)) or orders the creation or replacement of a tokenised instrument remotely (Art. 85(1)(d)); payee-initiated transactions without the payer’s involvement are exempt (Art. 85(2)). Where an agent-placed order falls remains open.
Sources. Law No. 6493 (Official Gazette 27.6.2013, No. 28690), Arts. 12, 13, 24; TCMB Regulation on Payment Services and Electronic Money Issuance and Payment Service Providers (Official Gazette 1.12.2021, No. 31676), Arts. 52-54; TCMB Communiqué on information systems of payment and e-money institutions and data-sharing services (Official Gazette 1.12.2021, No. 31676), Art. 10; BDDK Regulation on Banks’ Information Systems and Electronic Banking Services (Official Gazette 15.3.2020, No. 31069); Law No. 5464 (Official Gazette 1.3.2006, No. 26095), Arts. 12, 16; Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 (Official Gazette 4.2.2011, No. 27836), Arts. 33, 40-47; Turkish Civil Code No. 4721 (Official Gazette 8.12.2001, No. 24607), Arts. 8, 48; Law No. 6502 (Official Gazette 28.11.2013, No. 28835), Art. 48; Distance Contracts Regulation (Official Gazette 27.11.2014, No. 29188), Arts. 6, 7, 8, 9, 15; Law No. 6563 (Official Gazette 5.11.2014, No. 29166), Art. 4; KVKK No. 6698 (Official Gazette 7.4.2016, No. 29677), Arts. 4, 11; KVKK, Etken Yapay Zekâ (Agentic AI) (announced 12.3.2026); Directive (EU) 2015/2366 (OJ L 337, 23.12.2015), Arts. 64, 73, 74, 97; PSR final compromise text, Council doc. 8221/26 (17.4.2026), Arts. 49, 51, 85, 87, recital 103; Legislative Observatory 2023/0210(COD); Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (OJ L, 12.7.2024), Arts. 50, 113; Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (OJ L, 24.7.2026); Directive 2011/83/EU (OJ L 304, 22.11.2011), Art. 8; Directive (EU) 2023/2673 (OJ L, 28.11.2023), Art. 11a; Visa press release of 30.4.2025; Mastercard press release of 29.4.2025; Garanti BBVA and Mastercard announcement (December 2025).
This article is general information and not legal advice; a specific situation should be assessed with counsel.
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