IT Home October 17 news: The U.S. banking industry has warned regulators that AI agents, in order to help users earn higher returns, might automatically transfer idle funds to other accounts, causing massive outflows of bank deposits. According to a report by the UK's Financial Times on the 16th, Citigroup and Bank of America have also stepped in, restricting AI agents from accessing customer accounts.
Citibank said that to protect the security of customer accounts and personal information, the bank prohibits third-party AI agents or assistants from logging into customer accounts, and does not allow them to conduct transactions directly through Citibank's digital banking platform.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan revealed that the bank has also restricted AI agents from accessing individual customer deposits and has begun drafting rules to clarify who bears ultimate responsibility for payments authorized by AI: “We firmly believe that the transfer of funds out of an accountmust be authorized by a human. We are communicating with agent providers, telling them: ‘You certainly don't want consumers coming back to complain that money was moved out of their accounts without knowing why or where it went, only to find out it was done by an AI agent.’”
A person familiar with the matter confirmed that Bank of America has taken restrictive measures.
In September this year, after Meta launched its AI personal assistant Muse, the banking industry's concerns about deposit outflows intensified further. Banks worry that AI agents will seek higher-yield deposit accounts on behalf of consumers, moving large amounts of idle funds out of their original accounts.
At the same time, AI companies are racing to launch new tools and chatbots to help consumersmanage their personal finances。
A report by Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, further intensified the banking industry's concerns. He warned that AI assistants could automatically move household funds out of checking accounts earning an average nationwide rate of just 0.1% and deposit them into other accounts with rates of 3.3% to 5%.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo hold a combined 1.6 trillion US dollars (IT之家 note: at the current exchange rate, approximately 10.72 trillion yuan) in non-interest-bearing deposits, accounting for 16% of the three banks' total liabilities. If they had to pay depositors interest at a 3% rate, the three banks would need to spend an additional 47 billion US dollars per year (at the current exchange rate, approximately 314.828 billion yuan), close to half of their combined annual profits.
If banks have to raise personal deposit rates to prevent depositors from moving funds to institutions offering higher rates, profits could shrink dramatically.
The report notes that if every household uses AI agents to boost returns on cash deposits, banks couldlose a large share of the low-cost deposits used for making loans, creating problems for the entire financial system.
A person familiar with the matter revealed that, regarding consumers' increasing use of AI agents to conduct financial transactions on their behalf, Wall Street executives have also expressed concerns to Federal Reserve supervisory staff.
Regulatory officials have privately welcomed banks' moves to block AI agents from accessing customer accounts. They believe the law may need to further clarify how consumers should authorize AI agents to conduct financial transactions on their behalf, and who should bear responsibility when something goes wrong.
Citibank said customers can still authorize certain open banking service providers toobtain account information on a read-only basis within a limited scope。
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon announced this week that, becausethe bank does not want potentially thousands of rogue agents, it will restrict AI agents from accessing customer accounts. “We must ensure customers are protected in the appropriate way, so we are also developing the corresponding tools. In the meantime, we will not allow any external AI agents to freely enter the banking system, because the risk is too great for both customers and JPMorgan Chase.”
Christof Störkmär, a senior partner at the consulting firm Simon-Kucher, believes that banks need to take measures to encourage customers to keep their money deposited, and must find ways to increase customer stickiness of deposit products. Specific measures could include expanding customer loyalty programs and offering different loan rates through these programs.