Citi blocks outside AI agents from logging into customer accounts

Citi has barred third-party AI agents and assistants from logging into customer accounts or making transactions directly through its digital banking platform. The move is about more than the risk of a chatbot making a bad transfer: banks worry that software designed to optimize a customer’s money could rapidly sweep idle cash into higher-paying accounts elsewhere. Deposits are a cheap and important source of funding for banks, so a world in which automated assistants constantly shop for a better return could make that funding less stable and more expensive. Citi still permits limited, read-only account-data access through some open-banking providers, drawing a line between helping customers see their finances and letting an autonomous tool move their money.