InMarketing Today

Citigroup and Bank of America have restricted artificial intelligence agents from accessing client accounts, the Financial Times reports today. Citi said it does not permit third-party agents or assistants 'to log into a customer's account or transact directly within our digital banking platforms'. The banks have told regulators they fear agents will move idle cash to higher-yielding accounts: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo hold $1.6tn of non-interest-bearing deposits, and paying 3 per cent on them would cost $47bn a year, almost half their collective annual earnings.

Customer protection is the stated reason; deposits are the arithmetic. Both can be true, and customers will see the gap. Brian Moynihan's argument, that a human should authorise money leaving an account until liability for an agent's mistakes is settled, is the one that stands up on its own. Blocking alone does not answer Torsten Slok's warning at Apollo: agents could sweep cash into accounts paying 3.3 to 5 per cent, against 0.1 per cent on the average checking account.

If you are a bank, state the protection case in terms a customer can check: who is liable if an agent errs, and what you permit instead, as Citi does with read-only access through open banking providers. Then give customers a reason to stay that does not depend on the gate; Christoph Stegmeier of Simon-Kucher says deposit products must become stickier. If you sell to banks, expect agent-access terms in your next security review.

Michael Gilmore, co-founder of the Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards, argues in a Financial Times opinion column today that fintech has attracted more than $1tn of investment over the past decade, almost none of it aimed at financial capability. KPMG puts first-half investment this year above $100bn, more than double the first half of 2025. Over the same period, American adults answered 47 per cent of questions correctly in the survey run by TIAA and Stanford University, down from 52 per cent in 2020 and the lowest score in its ten-year history.

The commercial argument is more useful than the moral one. Gilmore cites Dutch research finding that financially literate customers trust their banks more, and a Peruvian study of 60,000 former financial literacy students who held their debt in better shape, so capability is a retention asset, not charity. Treat the piece with care: it is an opinion column, he co-founded the awards he cites, and 'almost none' is his estimate, not a measured figure. The brand opening is real all the same. In the United Kingdom, only 3 per cent of young people answered all five questions in a recent money survey correctly, and just 2 per cent said they learnt about money from banks.

Pick the one money worry your product touches and answer it in plain language where customers will look, including late at night: a short explainer, a calculator, a prompt in the app. Then measure whether the customers who use it stay longer or default less, so the spend is judged as retention rather than goodwill. If you sell to banks, bring that evidence to the pitch.

Britain's government sought to persuade UBS to move its headquarters and stock market listing to London if the bank leaves Switzerland, the Financial Times reports today. Rachel Reeves pitched the City to the bank's chair, Colm Kelleher, during her time as chancellor, according to people briefed on the talks, most recently earlier this year. UBS says its goal is to stay in Switzerland and there is no indication it is planning a move, but Swiss lawmakers last month pressed ahead with rules the bank says would require about $16bn of additional capital. UBS and Reeves declined to comment.

The communications problem is one UBS cannot yet solve in public. Its identity is Swiss, yet its chair has acknowledged it could reconsider, its board has examined redomiciling, and Artisan Partners, one of two major shareholders urging a rethink, has called Switzerland 'no longer an attractive or desirable location'. A leak like this shows how a brand's origin can become negotiable in other people's conversations before its owner has spoken. Industry observers see the United States as the likelier destination, so the story says more about the courting than the outcome.

If a regulatory decision could change where your firm is based, write the explanation for each scenario now: what you would tell clients, staff and regulators, and in what order. Keep one consistent public line, as UBS has, and make sure it stays true under every outcome. Whoever tells the story first sets its frame.