Bank of America has a polite but firm message for customers: do not hand your banking password to your AI assistant.
Bank of America (Credits: TechCrunch)
Bank of America Warns Against Sharing Banking Passwords With AI Assistants
In a customer email titled “Protecting your finances in the AI World,” the banking giant urged customers to never share their username and password with another person or an outside service — “including an AI-enabled tool or agent that offers to act on your behalf.”
The warning lands as personal AI assistants grow more popular and more customers hand over their logins so an agent can check balances, pay bills or shop on their behalf. The risks are real: an agent could move money without the customer realising, the bank could mistake the agent’s activity for a break-in and lock the account, or a security flaw in the assistant could leak the credentials to hackers.
Why Banks Are Grappling With AI Agents
Banks are still figuring out how AI agents fit into finance. The industry is working toward a world of agentic payments, where customers could set an agent to autonomously buy things at the best price or the right time — but banks, payment providers and processors are still working out how to allow that access safely, and are reportedly grappling with unauthorised agents already reaching into customer accounts.
Bank of America’s email carries a blunt sting in the tail. “If you do share your credentials,” it reads, “keep in mind that you’re responsible for activity resulting from that access.” Account agreements at most banks hold customers responsible for anyone they give their login to — human or AI.
The message is simple: until banks offer an official, secure way for AI tools to connect to your account, keep your password to yourself.
Also Read: 1Password Launches ‘1Password for Agents’ — AI Agents Can Log In for You Without Ever Seeing Your Password | AI Shopping Agents Are Ready to Buy — But Amazon, Airlines and Banks Are Blocking Them
Source: TechCrunch AI — read the full story there.
