JPMorgan and Schwab lock outside AI agents out of customer accounts

Two of America's biggest money firms have drawn a line on AI agents, and it's all about passwords. On JPMorgan Chase's third-quarter earnings call on 13 October, CEO Jamie Dimon said the bank won't let outside agents into customer accounts to act for them. “We're not going to allow just any … outside agent to come in inside the company, because it's just too risky for clients and for JPMorgan,” he told analysts. Then the line that got quoted everywhere: “You don't want rogue agents, and it could be thousands of them.”

What's actually blocked

A JPMorgan spokeswoman confirmed the bank currently blocks external AI agents from operating on behalf of retail customers: “Because it is not safe, we do not permit third parties to access accounts by obtaining customers' banking credentials and logging in on their behalf.” Read-only sharing through open banking providers like Plaid still works, so an agent can see a balance. It just can't send money or pay a bill, which is most of what makes an agent useful. There's no timeline for when that might change.

Dimon also had a warning for customers who hand an agent the keys anyway: “They should understand there's a liability transfer.” Meanwhile the bank is piloting its own tool, Smart Cash, which aims to predict a customer's cash flow and move funds to get the best yield.

Schwab follows three days later

On 16 October Schwab CEO Rick Wurster said in a TV interview that the firm is actively blocking outside agents that try to move client money, and he named Meta's Muse. “We don't want someone just giving their password to Muse, and letting Muse come in and take action on that client's behalf,” he said. “We can't control it, the client can't control it, something could go wrong and who's liable?” He says he gets a weekly report on the blocks, and the big agents get stopped in the tens and twenties every week.

Schwab's alternative is controlled connections, MCP servers, a standard way to plug AI tools into a system under the host's rules. Through them, outside AI will be able to check balances and do research, but not move money. Schwab would also like clients to use its own assistant, Charley.

Our take

Nothing blew up here. This is the other side bracing for agents to blow things up. An agent that works by logging in as you, with your password, looks exactly like an attacker to a bank, and the question of who pays when it goes wrong has no clear answer yet. If that's how your product works, expect more doors to close. Build on official, scoped access, even if it's read-only for now. Password-scraping demos well, but it's the first thing a bank blocks, and it leaves your user holding the bag when something goes wrong.