RBC blocks third party AI agents, Bank of England survey finds 80% of UK financial firms use AI agents, and more - Finance AI Weekly #91

In this edition, covering 26 October to 1 November:

• RBC is blocking third party personal AI agents from its online banking, and TD, CIBC and Bank of Montreal said they also block such access.
• A Bank of England and FCA survey of 196 UK financial firms found 86% use AI and 80% have AI agents in production.
• Itaú Unibanco agreed to buy NeoSpace AI for 2.925 billion reais, about $589 million.

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Banks and AI agents

RBC is blocking third party personal AI agents from authenticated services, including online banking, because of security, privacy and fraud risks. Customers can keep using its website, mobile app and existing digital tools. TD, CIBC and Bank of Montreal said they also block such access, while Scotiabank said it will limit it. RBC

Stripe launched Link Balance, which lets consumers fund dedicated balances and set spending limits for AI agents. It starts with Instinct and uses stablecoins on Tempo, Privy's non custodial wallets and Stripe Issuing virtual debit cards, so agents can buy without manual approval for every transaction. Stripe Link Balance

In the UK, a 2026 survey of 196 financial services firms by the Bank of England and the FCA found 86% use AI, up from 75% in 2024, and 80% have AI agents in production, mostly giving decision support. Generative AI made up 56% of reported AI systems. Bank of England survey

In Hong Kong, the Securities and Futures Commission's first AI readiness survey found that 30% of 20 large financial firms use agentic AI and 25% are piloting it, and 95% expect adoption to accelerate over the next 12 months. The SFC says its supervision will focus on investor protection, cybersecurity, human accountability and collaboration. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority plans Project SAGE to test AI agents in finance, and HSBC plans an AI and emerging technology institute in Hong Kong with HKUST in the first quarter of 2027, and will train its global workforce of about 200,000 people in AI. Hong Kong SFC survey · HSBC institute

Bank deals

Itaú Unibanco, Latin America's largest bank by assets, agreed to buy all shares of NeoSpace AI for 2.925 billion reais (about $589 million), part at closing and the rest over five years. NeoSpace builds large AI models and has worked with Itaú for nearly two years. KB Kookmin Bank is lead arranger of a 12.6 trillion won ($9.45 billion) financing for a project led by Brookfield to build AI computing infrastructure in South Korea, buy GPUs and supply capacity to Naver Cloud. About 10.7 trillion won will come from loans, which makes it Korea's largest syndicated loan and its first GPU financing deal. Itaú and NeoSpace · KB Kookmin Bank

Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company and ARP Group plan an AI native, blockchain enabled wholesale bank headquartered in Bahrain for financial institutions, payment companies and cross border businesses. It has in principle approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain and needs final authorisation before it can start regulated activities. Mumtalakat and ARP

Finance teams and accounting

Hyphenate, a New York startup that builds AI agents for finance teams, raised a $45 million Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners with B Capital, bringing its total funding to $54 million. It says revenue grew 86 times in 12 months. Collective raised a $40 million Series B led by General Catalyst, QED Investors and Gradient Ventures, plus a $60 million growth facility from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund. Collective automates taxes and payroll for solo entrepreneurs and will use the money to develop banking and insurance products. Hyphenate · Collective

Madrid based Talky Labs raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding from HelloWorld, Silence VC, Motive Force, Aera Capital and angel investors. Its AI learns each company's accounting practices and processes invoices, tax information and bank transactions. Talky Labs

Markets and wealth

Bloomberg introduced BQuant Assistant, a conversational AI coding tool in BQuant Desktop and BQuant Enterprise. It generates and runs approved Python and BQL code, answers questions about Bloomberg data and workflows, helps debug projects and creates visualizations. It will be generally available in BQuant Enterprise and enter a limited beta in BQuant Desktop at the end of October 2026. Bloomberg

Nevis, based in London and New York, raised a €62 million Series B led by EQT Ventures, with strategic investments from Charles Schwab and QuantumLight. It will expand its AI agents for wealth management, strengthen integrations with custodians and wealth technology companies and grow its teams. Its total funding is now €98 million. Nevis

Insurance

Verisk added integrations with Amazon Quick and Microsoft Copilot and expanded its offerings in Anthropic's Claude. Eligible insurers can reach its ISO Loss Costs, Premium Audit Advisory Service content and property level hail and wind history through controlled, permissioned AI connections. Verisk

UK startup i23 raised £4.9 million in seed funding to develop an AI operating model for insurance brokers. Four Cities Capital led the round with Outward VC, Seedcamp and Insiders Ventures. The company was founded by former UK government minister Bim Afolami and PrimaryBid co-founder Anand Sambasivan. CoverGo, based in San Francisco and Hong Kong, raised $6 million in the initial close of its Series B1, led by Betatron Venture Group, to develop its AI insurance platform and expand its global market presence. i23 · CoverGo

Fitch Ratings gives all insurance subsectors a business disruption score of 20 in its AI stress test, a moderate risk over five years, citing regulation, distribution networks and policyholder data as protections. Retail insurers face more competition from technology firms than commercial insurers. Separate Accenture research found that 81% of surveyed insurers reported at least 5% growth in gross written premiums from AI and data initiatives. Fitch