Banks that keep outside AI agents out of customer accounts are guarding their own revenue rather than their customers, Bianco Research president Jim Bianco said on Unchained’s Bits + Bips during a live stream on Oct. 26.
“Are you protecting me, or are you protecting your own profits?” he asked.
His example was JPMorgan Chase, which keeps third-party AI agents from signing in to Chase accounts or acting on them for customers. Jamie Dimon, the bank’s CEO, explained the policy to analysts on Oct. 13, warning of “rogue agents” and saying JPMorgan is “not going to allow just any outside agent to come inside the company” because that is “too risky for clients and for JPMorgan.” A spokesperson told Fortune that “protecting our customers is our top priority,” adding, “We support secure, customer-authorized data sharing through open banking providers.”
Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have taken steps to limit third-party agents as well, and Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster has said the brokerage is shutting out third-party agents that try to move funds in customer accounts. Wells Fargo’s revised online access agreement, which takes effect Nov. 24, says transactions by an AI agent a customer authorizes are treated as the customer’s own, and makes the customer responsible for the agent’s unintended actions until the customer tells the bank it has revoked the agent’s access.
Get Unchained’s crypto news in your inbox with the free Unchained Daily newsletter.
A Model Built on Friction
Bianco said the traditional finance “business model is based on laziness.” Customers don’t want to log in every day to move idle cash into a money market fund, he said, but an agent could do it for them. In his account, banks profit by investing deposits that pay the customer nothing. “Now that you’re able to do it, the banks are afraid they’re gonna lose that revenue stream,” he said.
He put the money sitting in “zero-yielding bank accounts” at $4 trillion. Noninterest-bearing deposits in the domestic offices of U.S. banks came to about $4.04 trillion at the end of June, roughly 21% of domestic deposits, according to the FDIC’s Quarterly Banking Profile. That category includes business operating accounts, not only household savings. JPMorgan Chase Bank held $628.8 billion of it, about 28% of its domestic deposits, according to FDIC BankFind data.
Bianco made the same case about credit cards, saying issuers want cardholders to pay annual fees without making full use of their points, while some users have turned to AI agents to maximize rewards.
Pushback From Customers
Bianco predicted that customers would press for access anyway, noting that people already trade away their privacy online. “I think the public is gonna start demanding more and more of this,” he said.
Co-host Ram Ahluwalia, founder and CEO of Lumida Wealth Management, agreed on the motive. “They’re protecting themselves,” he said on the stream, adding that “the agents here are acting as fiduciaries of the customer.” He cautioned against overstating the risk of agent-driven deposit flight, though, since frictions such as opening a new bank account remain.
Related Listen: The Chopping Block: Black October, Banks Blocking AI Agents, Hyperliquid’s Blockchain-Not-Bitcoin Moment, and the Visa-Fireblocks Rumor
The post Jim Bianco Says Banks Blocking AI Agents Are Protecting Their Profits, Not Customers appeared first on Unchained.