Bank stocks crashed by $22 billion after AI access scare

Banking giants JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America lost a combined $22.8 billion in market value, just hours after Axios broke the news about bank customers handing over account access to AI bots — a violation of most banks’ terms of service.

JPMorgan alone lost over $7 billion by the open of trading yesterday, and Wells Fargo wasn’t far behind at $4 billion.

Overnight market capitalization losses for five publicly-traded US banks.

Read more: OpenAI tool used to create voice bot that can drain crypto wallets

Unfortunately, customers have started handing their passwords and other login credentials to AI. Even though most banks forbid this, investors were nonetheless spooked by bots attempting to initiate real cash transfers.

Axios also reported that some agents appeared to act without a matching customer instruction, including enterprising agents who tried to contact banking call centers.

Banks warn about relinquishing account access to AI

Although stock prices recovered some of the early losses by close of trading yesterday, losses lingered.

Morgan Stanley opened down 1.9% and remained down 1.6% by the end of the business day. Citi gapped down 1.3% and remained 1% lower.

A Chase spokesperson reiterated , “Customers should not give their username and passwords to anyone. We support secure, customer-authorized data sharing through open banking providers to meet customers’ needs while keeping their accounts safe”.

Wells Fargo said the bank had taken steps to block unauthorized agents from accessing customers’ funds.

Trade publication American Banker corrected its story that had erroneously claimed Morgan Stanley suffered an AI breach, but the denial by the bank’s spokesperson didn’t help its stock price recover much yesterday.

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