AI agents could put $160B in banking revenue at risk — What about stablecoins?

Banks spent the last year guarding their vaults from stablecoins, and for the most part, they won.

Turns out, the bigger threat might be on your phone.

Stablecoins knocked, AI agents might not bother

A year ago, GENIUS Act-backed stablecoins were supposed to drain money from banks.

In all honesty, there was much to play for. $19 trillion in US deposits, and another $14.5 trillion in dollar deposits held abroad.

It hasn’t really played out that way though.

Circle [CRCL] is now valued at about $22 billion; that’s about 60% below where it was at June last year. For now, stablecoins are mostly helping companies move money into countries with weak banking systems.

Not enough people are buying a sandwich with them, though.

AI agents are a completely different ballgame altogether. Subscriptions and standing orders have run on autopilot for years, but a person sets those rules.

Agents decide.

McKinsey estimates that AI agents could put $75 billion in global payments revenue at risk by 2030. Under a more aggressive adoption scenario, that figure could rise to $160 billion.

Most of the baseline exposure comes from deposits. Agents could automatically move idle customer cash into higher-paying accounts, reducing the cheap funding banks rely on to earn interest income.

Are banks changing the locks?

Citigroup and Bank of America don’t let third party AI-agents access client account. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are also restricting access. In a recent earnings call, CEO Jamie Dimon famously said,

We’re not going to allow just any … outside agent to come in… it’s just too risky for clients and for the bank.

Some lenders are already planning for damage control, for when their agents go rogue!

But all this will only buy time.

Visa and Mastercard are working on ways to verify an agent’s identity. Google and OpenAI are building tools that let agents pay without ever touching a checkout page!

Businesses are another worry. Treasury platforms like Kyriba, Trovata, GTreasury, and Agicap, or giants like SAP and Oracle, could run agents that decide where company cash sits.

Banks would still hold and safeguard the money, but AI-driven platforms could increasingly influence where it sits and how it moves.

Final Summary

• AI agents could put upto $160 billion of global payments revenue at risk.
• Major banks are limiting AI agent access to customer accounts.