Equals Money lets customers’ AI tools read data but not move money
Opening a Model Context Protocol server, or MCP server, to customers’ AI tools is becoming standard for fintech companies, but in payments a rogue agent does not just leak data — it moves money. That raises the bar for how agents are identified, logged and stopped. Identity providers are adding controls for that separation, with […] The post Equals Money lets customers’ AI tools read data but not…
Equals Money allows customers to utilize AI tools for data analysis, but strictly prohibits these tools from executing financial transactions. This approach is becoming increasingly common among fintech companies, but the stakes are higher in the payments industry. Unlike data breaches, rogue AI agents have the capability to manipulate funds.
To mitigate this risk, fintech firms are implementing stringent measures to identify, monitor, and control AI agents. Companies like Okta are introducing new features such as runtime enforcement and a kill switch for AI agents. James Simcox, chief operations and product officer at Equals Money PLC, emphasizes that treating AI agents like employees is crucial.
"As a financial services business, we’ve always had to audit everything our staff do," Simcox stated. "With agents, we also have to not only treat them like a human but [like] they’ve got their own identity [and like] they’ve got their own access."
Equals Money already employs AI agents in customer-facing roles, with AI writing approximately 92% of its code. This extensive use of AI underscores the importance of agent identity and the ability to revoke access swiftly. Simcox explains, "Having that identity on the agent is really, really key, but also the ability to cut them off." In the event of an agent behaving maliciously, Okta’s Agent Gateway kill switch can revoke all active tokens held by the compromised agent, a process that is currently manual.
Equals Money takes a cautious approach towards customer-controlled agents, treating them as if they were part of their own ecosystem. The company bears full liability for any errors made by customers using AI tools. Simcox elaborates, "If you use the AI tools available in your [enterprise resource planning] package or whatever [and] attach it to our MCP server, maybe we can just make that data exchange way quicker."
However, Equals Money has consciously decided to restrict customer-controlled agents from processing payments, allowing read-only data access or non-sensitive write operations.
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