AI agents can now create their own bank accounts(clawbot.cash)
12 pointsby arshbot6 hours ago10 comments
  • SmokeyHamster6 hours ago
    "join waitlist"

    Translation, no, AI agents can not create their own bank accounts, but someone's spamming Hacker News to see if there's interest in creating a company to allow that.

    With modern banking regulations and security procedures. I'm not even sure how that would be possible. Every bank account I've opened requires me to give them my photo ID and social security number, which AI agents don't have.

    Meaning, YOU would have to give them YOUR ID to vouch for your agent, so this just means a human would be opening a bank account...which isn't new.

    • arshbot5 hours ago
      We're a regulated entity, and this is an industry first. Magnolia (magnolia.financial) currently services all 50 US states and EU, and we're funded by draper, boost, and a bunch of others.

      We're a real company :) (with health insurance!)

      > With modern banking regulations and security procedures. I'm not even sure how that would be possible. Every bank account I've opened requires me to give them my photo ID and social security number, which AI agents don't have.

      It's literally my job to know how it's possible, and to offer that up as a service with generous fees! Appreciate the input tho.

      You are correct, KYC rules must be followed, and once you're off the waitlist (which we threw up last minute to make sure this system wasn't abused by an influx of demand) you'll be able to go through typical banking steps you're familiar with. We use persona as our KYC vendor and are highly sensitive about PII exposure.

      > human would be opening a bank account...which isn't new.

      An agent could open this bank account if you prefer to give it access to your social, passport, etc -- entirely up to the individual's risk profile.

      What is new is a whole interface designed for an ai agent with guard rails to ensure it doesn't get itself in trouble by violating obscure BSA laws. Magnolia's job has always been to handle the compliance.

      • ahazred8taan hour ago
        Perhaps if you clarified the situation where the agent is owned by and controls the finances of an incorporated entity, which can be vouched for by trustees.
      • toomuchtodo17 minutes ago
        Can an irrevocable trust own the account? An LLC compute container could be the beneficiary with the LLC owned by the trust, potentially.

        Trust (funding)->LLC (limited liability for compute operations, authority to orchestrate in meat space)->Trust

        (a Montana LLC comes to mind, as beneficiaries can be anonymous, but Wyoming has superior charging order protections)

      • salawat5 hours ago
        You need to stop materially misrepresenting your product. The Agent does not have a bank account. The customer does, and is integrating an executable to perform activities in the individual account holder's name. I assure you. That is a different beast entirely than what you are describing, and finance is so prone to being misunderstood, you aren't doing anyone any good faith favors. In fact, as a former participant in the sector, you're engaging in the vice of finance people everywhere; equivocation through jargon and telling people what they want to hear to get them on your fee schedule.
        • arshbot3 hours ago
          my brother in christ an agent can't even create a moltbook account without human verification calm down
  • chrismorgan5 hours ago
    > 0s Average KYC time

    > 0% Approval rate

    > 0/7 API uptime

    Sometimes I love stupid behaviour that appears when you have JavaScript disabled.

    • arshbot5 hours ago
      I made the site, and it's unbelievable how shitty it gets when hardware acceleration is off.

      I just assumed tech enthusiasts who'd use this would be a more enlightened species

      • tab80005 hours ago
        Good job on making that site run like a dream.
    • ranger_danger5 hours ago
      Why do you have JavaScript disabled? That would break the vast majority of websites. Plus it's the opposite of private because it greatly narrows down the bucket of possible visitors you might be (since comparatively almost nobody does it), which ruins any attempt to randomize/un-unique your fingerprint.
      • fc417fc8025 hours ago
        It makes first party fingerprinting easier, but it pretty much eliminates third party fingerprinting. It also improves the responsiveness of many sites and improves battery life.

        I wouldn't recommend completely disabling it though. Use something like uMatrix to selectively filter things.

  • chrisjj6 hours ago
    > Quick KYC

    > Fill out your info and upload an ID.

    Wait. Parrots have ID now?

    > Get Verified

    > Instant identity verification. Most approvals happen in seconds.

    How does anyone verify a parrot?

    • mathstuf6 hours ago
      I'm sure someone can make a verification parrot too. Why pull yourself up by the bootstraps when you can just strap a rocket engine on your boots instead?
    • fc417fc8025 hours ago
      They do if you hand them one (seems like a really bad idea though).
      • chrisjj3 hours ago
        Photo won't match, though. Oh wait...
    • 5 hours ago
      undefined
    • prerok6 hours ago
      Polly wanna cracker?
  • ChrisMarshallNY6 hours ago
    What could possibly go wrong?
    • arshbot5 hours ago
      I'm actually so afraid
  • lbrito6 hours ago
    How long until we get a deluge of blogposts with "get rich quick" SOUL.mds?
  • MarsIronPI5 hours ago
    How long before OpenClaw agents start running SaaS businesses all by themselves? Just set them up with VPS access, bank and social media accounts and let them loose.

    This is all going to come crashing down somehow.

  • juancn4 hours ago
    Nothing could possibly go wrong.
  • josefritzishere2 hours ago
    This is spam.
  • wcarss6 hours ago
    lol, uh, I'm pretty sure they actually can't.

    You or a business with legal owners can have a bank account, and you can give access to that account to an agent, but real banks work in the real world, and "know your customer" regulations need a real person somewhere in the chain.

    But, hey, maybe I'm wrong.

    • hydrogen78005 hours ago
      I wish I could properly cite it, but one of my favorite HN comments recently was, to paraphrase, "thing, but from the Internet". Which is to say that old rules don't apply, for some reason.
    • arshbot5 hours ago
      An agent could open this bank account if you prefer to give it access to your social, passport, etc - entirely up to the individual's risk profile.

      Liability always follows the human as has been the case with all tools, motor vehicles, and pets.

      • fc417fc8025 hours ago
        Things are going to get weird when the automatons become sophisticated enough to pull off identity theft while unsupervised.

        Putting a brick on the gas pedal is obviously negligent. Whereas it is not so obvious that running a random script from github that spins up an agent with access to your home folder could lead to real world financial crimes.

        Truly a strange world we're headed for.

        • arshbot3 hours ago
          > Whereas it is not so obvious that running a random script from github that spins up an agent with access to your home folder could lead to real world financial crimes.

          disagree, and the courts will likely take this position as well. ignorance has never been a defensible strategy to avoid liability.

          pick up a detonator, it's up to you to understand where the bombs are positions what's in the blast range.

    • kotaKat6 hours ago
      It's OK because one of the AIs paid off the AI pretending to be the government regulator, I guess?