Published:
Oct 24, 2026
Author:
Sarah Parsons Wolter
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Meta built an AI agent that can shop, book and pay on your behalf, and a third of America’s biggest websites have decided it isn’t coming in. Jefferies tested Muse on several hundred leading US retail, travel and reservation sites. About a third blocked it outright, another third put up a fight, and only a third let it through. Last month Amazon showed Muse the door, telling users that access by an “unauthorized AI agent” breaks its terms.
This week the banks also threw up a velvet rope. Jamie Dimon said the bank won’t let any outside agents in. Agents can still check Chase balances through Plaid, but they can’t send money or pay a bill. Schwab is doing the same to protect what one analyst puts at $9b a year of ‘inertia’ profit on idle cash and pricey margin loans. It isn’t purely about security, either. When Muse topped the app charts in September, bank stocks fell on fears that agents would sweep idle deposits into higher-yielding accounts.
Look closer and nobody is against agents, only against agents they don’t own. Amazon’s own Buy for Me shops other retailers’ sites for you. JPMorgan is piloting Smart Cash, which forecasts your cash flow and moves funds to maximize yield. That’s why Meta is signing deals for connectors with Walmart and Best Buy and co-writing an agent ID protocol with Sierra.
Fintech has seen this film before. Banks fought screen-scraping aggregators for years, then started charging them for the data. The future of agentic banking is an AI that moves your money wherever it earns the most, and JPMorgan has kindly worked out that’s JPMorgan. For the rest of the agents, it’s a case of do not pass go do not collect $200.
Portfolio News
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Extend named a Mastercard financial operations platform partner - Mastercard selected Extend as a financial operations platform partner, giving commercial card-issuing banks in the US and Canada an out-of-the-box software layer with virtual cards, automated month-end reconciliation and AI agents to compete with software-first spend management providers. Read more
Strike runs offensive-security hacking lab at Ekoparty 2026 - Strike turned its Ekoparty Buenos Aires booth into a hacking lab, drawing 250+ attempts at timed vulnerability challenges, while its Head of Hacking presented biometric bypass research and its Head of Sales argued exposure time belongs in cybersecurity ROI. Read more
Sigma360 named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 - Sigma360, which uses AI to help financial institutions automate global risk analyses, was one of 22 Techstars portfolio companies named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies, alongside firms spanning healthcare, logistics and real estate. Read more
Mattilda report: empty seats, late payments squeeze schools - Mattilda's 2026 report finds Latin American private schools run at 62% of capacity, while average tuition delinquency at Mexican schools tops 10% a month, squeezing cash flow. CEO Jesús Lanza says stronger financial management is key to sustainable growth. Read more
Extend launches AI Receipt Agent for bank partners - Extend shared its AI Receipt Agent with bank partners, automating the matching of receipts to card transactions while finance teams keep final approval, every match stays explainable, and receipts are pulled securely from employees' Gmail or Outlook accounts. Read more
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Computah Says No
JPMorgan shuts out third-party AI agents - JPMorgan confirmed it blocks outside AI agents, such as Meta's Muse and Instinct, from acting on customer accounts or using customer credentials, while still allowing read-only data sharing via providers like Plaid. Jamie Dimon cited fraud and liability risks as the bank builds its own AI tools. Read more
Jefferies: a third of sites block Meta's Muse - Jefferies tested Meta's Muse agent on several hundred top US commerce and travel sites and found about one-third blocked it and another third restricted it, making website access, not model quality, the key bottleneck and likely delaying Meta's agentic-commerce take-rate revenue. Read more
Amazon blocks Meta's Muse but Shopify opens the door - Amazon began blocking Meta's Muse shopping agent on September 20, while Shopify opened every store on its platform to Muse with Shop Pay checkout. Shopify shares jumped over 7% as the split framed a contest over who grants agents permission to transact. Read more
Industry News
GTCR and Elliott take CCC Intelligent private for $6.1b - CCC Intelligent Solutions agreed to a $6.1b all-cash take-private by a GTCR-led consortium including Elliott, a 44 percent premium. Read more
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Kraken parent to buy Saldo Bank for EU licence - Payward, Kraken's parent, agreed to acquire Lithuania-based Saldo Bank and its Finnish holding company to secure a full EU banking license, upgrading from an Irish e-money license. Read more
Santander cuts AI serving costs with smaller specialized models - Santander is moving from large general-purpose models to smaller specialized ones for banking tasks, cutting serving costs in selected use cases from about €5 to €0.03 per interaction. Read more
CFTC moves on crypto rules as CLARITY Act stalls - After the CLARITY Act fell short of cloture in the Senate in September, the CFTC issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking proposing a new crypto asset market registration category and retail protections for leveraged trading. Read more
Carlyle buys $7.7b Truist loan portfolio - Carlyle's Global Credit platform agreed to acquire roughly $7.7b of unsecured personal loans from Truist, mostly fixed-rate loans to super-prime and prime borrowers. Read more
Fannie and Freddie's VantageScore move rattles FICO - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have opened the door to lenders using VantageScore, owned by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, for mortgage underwriting, challenging FICO's long grip on the $13t mortgage market. Read more
Visa wins approval for China card clearing business - Visa won approval from China's central bank to prepare a domestic bank-card clearing business, becoming the third international network cleared after American Express and Mastercard, and gaining a formal route into a market long dominated by UnionPay. Read more
ECB locks in 2027 digital euro pilot - Christine Lagarde told the IMF's steering committee the Eurosystem will run a 12-month internal digital euro pilot from the second half of 2027. Read more
FCA plans to automate regulation with AI - The UK's Financial Conduct Authority plans to become an agentic regulator, using AI to automate much of its supervisory and enforcement work while stopping short of writing new rules for the firms it oversees, mirroring the agentic tools reshaping the industry it polices. Read more
Apple to fight UK tap-to-pay ruling - Apple is preparing to challenge the UK Competition and Markets Authority's push to open iPhone tap-to-pay technology to rival payment providers, a move that would weaken Apple Pay's grip on mobile payments and sets up a fresh clash between Big Tech and UK regulators. Read more
Intuit to acquire AI revenue platform Sequence - Intuit agreed to acquire Sequence, an AI-native revenue management startup automating billing, contracts and revenue recognition, to strengthen Intuit Enterprise Suite and QuickBooks Online Advanced for mid-market customers as usage-based and milestone pricing grows more complex. Read more
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Select Financings
CapitalOS - Belmont, based provider of embedded financial infrastructure for B2B platforms raised $21.9m in Series A funding led by LGVP. Read more
Dougs - Lyon based AI-powered accounting and financial-management platform for small businesses raised €50m in growth funding led by Expedition Growth Capital. Read more
Erebor - Columbus based bank serving defense, robotics, and AI raised $30m in new funding led by Robinhood Ventures Fund I. Read more
Hyperlayer - London based provider of technology that lets banks launch new products without replacing their core systems raised $25.8m in new funding led by Flintlock Capital. Read more
Mural - New York City based infrastructure provider for fintech companies, covering accounts, payments, identity verification, and compliance, raised $15m in Series A funding led by Tether. Read more
Pennant - New York City based developer of AI software that helps institutional investors research and manage proxy votes and corporate-governance decisions raised $5m in Seed funding led by Urban Innovation Fund. Read more
Pigment - Paris based enterprise financial-planning and business-modeling platform raised $250m in Series E funding led by EQT. Read more
Plinto - Copenhagen based AI financial-controlling platform that flags transaction and invoice errors for finance teams raised €2.9m in pre-Seed funding led by People Ventures and Emblem. Read more
Prism Data - New York City based company that analyzes bank-account transaction data raised $20m in Series A funding led by Story Ventures. Read more
Relace - London based regtech platform that automates regulatory compliance management for financial-services firms raised $1.6m in pre-Seed funding led by Boost Capital. Read more
Stand - San Francisco based insurtech that builds physics-based digital twins of homes to price wildfire and hurricane risk raised $70m in Series C funding led by Saga Ventures. Read more
Sunlight AI - New York City based company that runs administrative and payment operations for independent medical practices raised $10m in Seed funding led by Basis Set Ventures. Read more
Veckta - San Diego based platform that helps businesses evaluate and procure onsite solar and battery systems raised $11m in Series A funding led by Origin Ventures. Read more
Wavo - Lyon based fintech that buys and resells clients' inventory to free up working capital raised €10m in new funding led by Eurazeo. Read more
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