Smaller US Banks Open Accounts to AI Agents as JPMorgan and Wells Fargo Pull Back

Lead Bank, a Kansas City, Missouri-based lender that works with fintechs including Stripe, lets its partners issue account numbers reserved for AI agents, The Information reported. The agents can move money by ACH and wire transfer within limits the customer sets, and the bank said it applies transaction and spending caps and can lock an agent out immediately. "This ensures agents can only move money within explicitly defined parameters, rather than having unrestricted access to customer funds," a Lead Bank spokesperson told the publication.

The split matters for consumer AI assistants such as Muse or Instinct, which are being pitched to manage household finances and shop on users' behalf. The bank a customer uses could decide whether an agent can act for them at all. It also leaves open who pays when an agent makes a payment the customer did not intend.

Increase Bank, owned by fintech entrepreneur and early Stripe employee Darragh Buckley, plans to offer isolated accounts for agents, kept apart from the rest of a customer's money, as well as cards that agents can use. The customer would choose which agents can reach the account, and an agent would connect through an API once the bank confirms it has permission. Buckley, who has already opened an account at the bank for his own agent, said: "We don't need the entire industry to coordinate banking for agents. It's sufficient to have just a small cohort of technology-forward banks."

Natural, a payments start-up backed by venture firm Forerunner that has raised more than $40 million, is not a bank. It offers digital wallets for agents whose balances sit in FDIC-insured accounts at Column Bank, with each wallet recorded as a sub-ledger of a customer's account. One user is Conduit, which sells agents to short-term rental operators and hotels; its agents use the wallets to accept payments, pay vendors and contractors, and hold money.

Banks are also issuing single-use virtual cards to stop agents from overspending. Cross River Bank, which works closely with Stripe, said agent card payments it powers have exceeded $40 million across more than 200,000 transactions over the past three months, with airlines the largest consumer spending category.

The largest banks remain wary. Wells Fargo has warned that it could restrict or block some AI tools, and it recently changed its terms to say that customers who let an AI agent into their accounts are responsible for what the agent does.

Kahlil Lalji, Natural's co-founder and chief executive, argued that blocking agents is unlikely to work, because an agent with access to a user's email can still read the verification codes used to log in. He said banks would do better to give agents limited access whose activity can be tracked and audited. "Big banks can't do that technologically, so their protection is close up or try and close up," he said.