DrewADesign
3 hours ago
> Major U.S. banks detect unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts
Step 2 is instead of waiting to be caught, the instigators should issue a press release blaming cunning rogue agents as part of their research, call no felonies because they’re working for the greater good of eliminating a shitload of jobs, say the real problem is a lack of regulation. They could even return the money if it looks like they’re going to get sued, and collect some sweet, sweet reflexive investment money.
mahboi
2 hours ago
Misleading title; it's not pwnage, or at least not known. The customers authorized the agents. The "unauthorized" part is that the bank didn't want customers using agents.
ceroxylon
7 minutes ago
This was the most concerning part of that report for me:
>Some banks also saw agents contact call centers or take actions that appeared independent of user instructions, and executives say they often can't tell a human from an agent, or an authorized agent from a rogue one.
ghm2180
an hour ago
_Most_ people park liquid money in mainstream bank's checking accounts. This money is FDIC insured(upto 250K). The job of this bank is to is money is used by banks to make loans (duh!). There are three "modes" (in increasing yield_ order offered by these banks to account holders:
1. [FDIC] Put it in a Chase, BofA account. < 1% typically. Abysmal returns.
2. [FDIC] A higher yield checking/saving account(Ally at ~3.1 is a good example): But more hoops[1] to get more than 3.5%(today). Here https://www.wsj.com/buyside/personal-finance/banking/best-hi... the list.
3. [Not FDIC but pretty good**] A higher yield Money market mutual fund. You still need to place a buy order[2]. Something you have to do manually can give you around 3.86% today(See SNAXX)
This last case is more _interesting_ because its easy for agents. But consider what happens when a lot of people use muse to enmasse do this. There can be a run on the banks because[3] its not the same "money" in the balance sheet of the bank. Money leaving checking/savings and entering a MMF is not on the balance sheet of the bank(even though it can be coincidentally the same institution e.g. schwab checkig and schwab brokerage). Agents are a BIG threat to regular banks. I don't even see how it can be prevented, local agents are ubiquitous now.
[1] Exceptions are HY checkings but its hard to chase yield logistically: more hoops to jump like minimum balance or max ceiling, minimum transactions etc.
[2] See this from schwab's site: ``` For uninvested cash you do not plan to spend soon, you can consider investing in a money market fund such as the Schwab Prime Advantage Money Fund (SWVXX), which currently yields 3.71%, (7-day yield as of 2026-10-21), and can be purchased in a single trade with no minimum* and no transaction fee. Visit the Schwab Money Funds page to view all available funds and their current yields. ```
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPkJH6BT7dM
** MM funds are banks lending to each other to park overnight cash and borrow temporarily for actitivities, think of its like a bank's bank. In 2008 when the GFC was happening the fed had to step in and "ensure" this supply because a lot of banks were teetering and if one bank could not access its money or borrow for daily activities, no more cash would come from an atm.
cantrevealname
9 minutes ago
> But consider what happens when a lot of people use muse to enmasse do this. There can be a run on the banks because it's not the same "money" in the balance sheet of the bank.
But isn't this self-correcting? If everybody starts moving money from checking/savings accounts to money market funds to get better rates, then the bank will start offering better interest rates in their checking/savings accounts so people won't do that.
matwood
37 minutes ago
I typically park my cash in SGOV since the interest is mostly state tax free. It also tracks treasury rates in nearly real time.
stickfigure
3 hours ago
This is most likely actual customers deliberately giving their agents access.
Which is an interesting problem, what happens when the agent fucks up and the customer loses lots of money? Who is responsible?
If the official policy is "no agents", it shifts the blame.
outworlder
3 hours ago
Yeap. Most likely Muse, Grok Bot and things like that.
Honestly, US banks and credit unions should get their heads out of their asses and learn from it. There's a _reason_ people connect banks to YNAB, Monarch Money and stuff like that, and a reason why they might want an AI agent. They need the info. They may also need to make automated transactions, something companies have access to, but the ordinary person does not.
My landlord wants Zelle. I cannot schedule payments on my credit union. It's not like I can update the app since it lives inside their systems. So I have to login monthly. I debated getting another bank account and giving it to Muse just for that purpose.
Banks in the US are a couple of decades behind, say, Brazilian banks. Instant transfers to another bank were a thing since the early 2000s. And for years now you can do it from anyone to anyone, no third party app required. To the dismay of Visa and Mastercard.
tredre3
an hour ago
> I debated getting another bank account and giving it to Muse just for that purpose.
The point of getting the second bank account is to reduce the blast radius if the agent goes haywire, I suppose?
But then you'll have to manually top up that account every now and then, how does it solve your initial problem?
eszed
11 minutes ago
Some banks can schedule transfers, but not payments. Or, not payments by specific routes. My credit union will cut a paper check and mail it to your bank (yes, that's seriously what they actually do), but can't schedule Zelle, or (maybe they can do it now, but they couldn't a few years ago) an electronic transfer.
Like someone else up-thread, my experience moving back to the US from Europe, ~15 years ago, was like stepping back to the financial dark ages. It's a bit better now (Zelle, Plaid, Mint / Monarch - though I'm well-aware of the privacy downsides of those third-party platforms), but the industry isn't close to catching up with the fifteen-year-old state of the art, let alone, say, Indian or Brazilian micro-transaction networks.
kenhwang
12 minutes ago
Most banks let you schedule recurring transfers.
jmtulloss
an hour ago
This is why I moved to Mercury. It’s good tech.
stickfigure
an hour ago
I used Mercury for a startup a few years ago, they were great. Looks like they have personal banking now, but it's $20/mo unless you also have a business account.
DrewADesign
3 hours ago
Seems pretty straightforward to me. If the customer set the agent in motion, the customer is no less responsible for the damage than someone that (as i think Cal Newport said) ties a weedwacker to a dog. It’s reckless.
If they were sold a product that claimed to be safe, they could in turn sue whoever sold it to them. Jeep’s insurance wouldn’t pay someone I crashed into because of defect in my jeep, but I could in turn sue Jeep for my legal trouble.
direwolf20
3 hours ago
For example POLi. If you pay by giving your bank creds to POLi and they steal your money, you can't sue your bank but you can sue POLi.
jimmis
2 hours ago
It used to be the case that the average person didn't "know enough to get into trouble" when it came to software. But now that's not even necessary. I can imagine a layman asking Muse or some other agent something mundane like "why can't I transfer from Bank A to Bank B?" and unwittingly sending it down a rabbit hole where it's trying to gather sensitive info from places that consumers aren't intended to be able to access. Ultimately, it's just exposing pre-existing vulnerabilities. But the job of infosec definitely has gotten, and will continue to get, much harder I think.
fckgw
3 hours ago
Banks have had a long standing policy that if you willing hand over your credentials, you are responsible for any losses. This applies to AI agents as well as scammers.
dingaling911
3 hours ago
If a peasant breaks rules and loses money, it's their fault.
If a connected person breaks rules and loses money, it's someone else's fault.
I don't make the rules, I just break them.
dist-epoch
2 hours ago
corollary: if you own the bank $100 and you can't pay, you have a problem. if you own the bank $100 mil and you can't pay the bank has a problem
tcdent
3 hours ago
I don't understand why this is considered a security incident. Human behavior incident, sure, but this is not a vulnerability.
0xdeadbeefbabe
3 hours ago
Where's the interest? It's the customer's fault.
cyanydeez
3 hours ago
the official policy is: whoever has the least number of lawyers and most number of lobbiests.
None of that has changed.
toomuchtodo
3 hours ago
Citi becomes latest US bank to restrict AI agents from accessing accounts - https://www.ft.com/content/f49c8e39-f07f-4177-9948-aabe55e5e... | https://archive.today/0AlZP
Part of it is "human in the loop" for write actions, part of it is commercial banks are deathly terrified of agents being able to move deposits around rapidly to maximize yield, as those deposits are cheap cost of capital banks use to lend against. Historically, deposits of unsophisticated financial services consumers were sticky, and that assumption is breaking down. Agents can be consumer copilots towards information asymmetry in this context.
"computah, maximize rate of return, minimize interest expenses, manage cashflow, make no mistakes."
hollowonepl
2 hours ago
Apologies if this is vulgar but what kind of idiot grants access to his own bank account to AI agent. I don’t see logic here outside maybe B2B so accounting systems use AI while accessing accounts, like part of ERP system integration which is interesting case to confirm who and how allows that technically so IT could also educate itself and its accounting department and partners about the precedence… outside that it’s just plain stupid!
willchis
an hour ago
I think I need to use the quote here: "think of a person with average intelligence and then understand that 50% of people are dumber". It's going to be a bloodbath because even if the banks block agents there will still be third-party apps like Robinhood, Venmo, BroApp2027 that are given access and they'll be hooked up to agents.
lifeisloving
2 hours ago
Corporate Personhood in the agentic age.