Torsten Slok, Chief Economist at Apollo Global Management, has cautioned that if consumers begin relying heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) assistants such as Meta's (META.US) Muse to shift their cash into higher-yielding accounts, it could pose risks to the financial system.
In a report published last Sunday titled "Is an Agentic Bank Run Coming?", Slok stated: "If every household uses AI agents to optimize the returns on their cash balances, banks could lose a massive amount of cheap deposits they rely on to make loans, which would create problems for the entire financial system." Slok noted that AI assistants will soon be able to automatically move funds out of checking accounts, where the national average rate is just 0.1%, and into accounts yielding between 3.3% and 5.0%.
He also referenced several fintech companies that offer higher deposit rates than banks, including SoFi Technologies Inc. (SOFI.US), which pays 4.5%, and LendingClub, now renamed Happen Inc. (HAPN.US). Earlier this month, Meta's stock surged following the launch of Muse, which quickly climbed to the top of app rankings.
In recent years, traditional banks have been under competitive pressure from internet banks such as Goldman Sachs' (GS.US) Marcus and Ally Financial Inc. (ALLY.US), which are able to offer some of the highest rates in the industry without being weighed down by the fixed costs of branch networks. Ebrahim Poonawala, an analyst at Bank of America, said in a report last week that Muse's rapid adoption has reignited "the risk that AI agents break the customer inertia that underpins low-cost deposits." He added: "Chatbots can only tell customers their yields are too low, but AI agents can identify idle liquidity, compare yields, and execute the transfer directly."
Amid these risk concerns, shares of major banks came under pressure last week, with JPMorgan (JPM.US) and Wells Fargo (WFC.US) both falling about 3% on Tuesday.
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