Canada’s biggest bank is locking AI agents like Meta’s Muse out of online banking

If you’ve been letting an AI agent sign in to your RBC account, that is about to stop. Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest bank, says it has decided “to block third-party personal AI agents from direct access to authenticated RBC digital properties including online banking”, and that agent connections customers have already set up “will stop working.”

The notice, on RBC’s own site and dated October 27, makes it the first Canadian bank to block outside AI agents, according to The Globe and Mail. It comes a week after chief executive Dave McKay told Bloomberg Television the bank was weighing a block on Meta’s Muse.

“Unacceptable customer risk”

RBC’s public page explains the decision in a few lines. Personal AI agents “need access to your online accounts, including financial ones, and may store your passwords to get there,” it says, and as they become more autonomous, “the stakes go up when something goes wrong, from fraud and consumer harm to risks that could ripple more broadly through the financial system.”

An internal memo to staff, obtained by The Globe and Mail and seen by Bloomberg, is blunter. Naim Kazmi, group head of technology and operations, and Erica Nielsen, group head of personal banking, wrote that “third-party personal AI agents accessing banking systems can create unacceptable customer risk”, including agents acting beyond what customers expect and creating liability exposure. They said the bank “will begin work on blocking these platforms immediately” after a full security review.

RBC spokesperson Jeff Lanthier told The Globe: “We understand that this may be disappointing for the small portion of our clients who use these tools.”

What stops working, and what doesn’t

RBC hasn’t named any product. Neither its page nor the memo, as reported, lists which tools count as “third-party personal AI agents”, so there is no official list saying whether Meta’s Muse, ChatGPT’s agent or Claude-based browser tools are covered one by one. The wording is broad: any outside agent that signs in to RBC’s online banking on your behalf. Muse is the obvious target, since customers can authorise it to reach bank accounts, transaction history and card data.

RBC says customers can still:

• Bank directly: through RBC’s website and mobile app.
• Use RBC’s own tools: the bank’s built-in digital features.
• Call for help: RBC customer service can handle account questions.

There is a money angle too. The same page restates RBC’s Digital Banking Security Guarantee, which reimburses unauthorised transactions, but its terms say RBC won’t cover losses if “you share any of your Passwords” or “consent to, contribute to or authorize a transaction in any way.” Handing a password to an agent that later goes wrong could leave customers outside that promise.

The notice sits on RBC’s Canadian site. The bank hasn’t said whether the block reaches its US arm, City National, or its Caribbean banks, and hasn’t given a date when existing connections will be cut off. Meta hasn’t commented publicly.

Banks are closing ranks

RBC is following US lenders. JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Charles Schwab’s Rick Wurster have both said they block outside AI agents from moving customer money, and Amazon threw Muse off its store in September for capturing customers’ logins. RBC’s head of AI, Bruce Ross, told The Logic on October 22 that the bank needed to be able to stop unauthorised agent activity and settle who is responsible when something goes wrong. BMO chief executive Darryl White has told customers not to share sensitive banking details with agents.

Canada’s banking regulator won’t force the issue either way. Peter Routledge, head of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), said at Tech Festival Canada that he would leave the choice to each bank, as long as it follows OSFI’s guidelines:

Provided it’s done in a responsible way, that to me is indicative of sound risk management.

Peter Routledge, Superintendent of Financial Institutions, to The Globe and Mail

He added that customers who want agent services could move to a bank that allows them.

Why it matters

AI agents are only as useful as the accounts they can reach, and banks are where people keep the most at stake. With RBC joining JPMorgan and Schwab, agent makers like Meta face a choice: build the kind of approved, permissioned access that banks will accept, or watch their agents get locked out of the places customers most want help.

Sources: RBC (Understanding third-party AI agents and your RBC banking); The Globe and Mail; Bloomberg; Bloomberg (McKay, October 20); The Logic (Bruce Ross interview).