On Thursday, Axios reported that major banks in the US have found unauthorized AI agents operating inside customers’ accounts and taking actions without the customers’ permission. After the revelation, Reuters reported that US banks are taking steps to block the unvetted agents.
AI agents are third-party software that operate inside bank accounts, helping customers manage them. According to the Axios report, banks are detecting these agents trying to take actions in the accounts that were never authorized by the customers. In some cases, the report says customers have shared their login ID and password with the agents, but the bank’s system stepped in and blocked the transactions.
But it is alarming, as the transactions would otherwise be legal, since the credentials were shared by the customers.
Amid the onslaught of AI agents, banks are taking preventive measures to ensure accounts are not compromised by those agents. Reuters reported that sources say that the most major US banks are now blocking these agents.
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Among them is Morgan Stanley, which has blocked AI agents from accessing accounts on its platform. A spokesperson for the bank said that they have not observed cases of “rogue AI agents accessing our platforms.” Axios confirmed that Bank of America and Citi have also taken steps to ensure that unvetted AI agents don’t access the accounts.
AI Agents Major Threat For US Banking Industry
JPMorgan Chase and the brokerage Charles Schwab, two of the US’s major financial institutions, addressed the threat of AI agents earlier in October. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, had said that the bank will not allow “just any outside agent to come in inside the company because that’s just too risky for clients and for JPMorgan.”
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Richard Wurster, the CEO of Charles Schwab, also confirmed that the brokerage is blocking AI agents.
“I get a report every day tracking how many times we’ve had to block one of the different agents, and it’s not many because I think people aren’t using it in that way in their financial life. We are blocking it because we want to have control over authentication and the experience,” Wurster said.