AI agents Are Solving the Open Finance Dilemma Without Regulation

As the financial services industry pushes for Open Banking regulation to be succeeded by Open Finance, regulators are once again gearing up for a lengthy challenge.

However, one broader development could change the playing field here: the launch of AI agents.

This year, we’ve seen the likes of OpenAI Operator, an AI agent capable of independently performing tasks through web interactions, hit the public domain. 

AI tools may well achieve the outcomes that Open Finance promises, without the infrastructure it requires.

That reality would have major implications for regulators and financial institutions, as AI agents could render Open Finance obsolete before it even launches.

Open Finance in a Nutshell  

Open Banking – which became a regulatory requirement in the U.K. over six years ago – is a simple, secure way for businesses and consumers to move, manage and make more of their money using mobile banking apps.

Open Finance will extend the principles of Open Banking, such as data sharing and third-party access, across all financial products.

While Open Banking primarily covers basic account and payment data, Open Finance would encompass investments, insurance, pensions, mortgages, and other financial services. 

The objective is to give consumers greater control over their financial lives and allow service providers to offer more intelligent, personalised experiences.

Achieving this would mean standardising APIs across thousands of companies and hundreds of product types, each with unique data structures, compliance obligations, and back-end systems. 

Regulation at an Impossible Scale

Even with Open Banking’s narrower scope, regulators faced enormous challenges. The EU’s PSD2 directive, introduced 10 years ago, was so much of a headache for banks that regulators were forced to announce a successor in 2023 to iron out the kinks.     

Open Finance would be far more complicated to regulate.

Unlike Open Banking, which focuses on simple transactional banking, Open Finance would need to navigate a maze of financial institutions, insurers, and investment platforms, creating a monumental auditing task and possibly a longer tail of non-compliance.  

Standardising APIs across financial products and addressing Open Finance using the same approach as Open Banking could create coordination problems so deep that any attempt at it will either face decades of regulatory grind or simply be too insurmountable.  

It has been a mammoth task to get just one standard API specification to be taken seriously.

When we think about Open Finance, even if we oversimplify it to just lending and insurance, you’re already looking at double the API spec requirements and the legislative burden.

Further, Open Finance massively increases the number of entities to regulate, from large insurers and mortgage providers to credit card issuers and invoice financing firms. 

Open Finance Without the Red Tape

AI agents are solving the problems posed by Open Finance without the regulatory burden. Tools like Operator and Manus (also other examples of AI agents designed to automate tasks) promise to navigate any website like a human: logging in, filling forms, submitting applications, and retrieving data accurately and quickly. 

This approach bypasses the need for new APIs entirely. If a company has a functioning website, it’s already compatible with agent automation. There’s no dependency on regulatory frameworks, industry standards, or data-sharing agreements. 

Unlike regulator-mandated APIs, which are often stripped-down versions of internal systems, AI agents can interact with the same rich interfaces built for customers.

These front-ends often tap into full-featured private APIs that are more capable than their outward-facing counterparts. 

Most importantly, agents will handle complete workflows, including account opening and applications, which current API-based models often overlook.

This eliminates the mismatch between user value and API scope, delivering a more thorough version of Open Finance.  

A Warning To Adapt or Get Left Behind 

As AI agents become mainstream tools for user interaction, firms that optimise for agent accessibility will gain a competitive edge.  

At a minimum, this means maintaining clean, navigable websites and avoiding technologies that block agent traffic. But leading institutions will go further. They’ll adopt machine-readable structures to guide agent navigation, reduce error rates, and improve outcomes. 

The most advanced firms may implement protocols like the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which allow AI agents to interact directly with systems through structured prompts.

Others may build in-house concierge agents – AI interfaces that deliver support, guidance, and task completion at scale while maintaining compliance and oversight. 

None of these replaces the need for regulation in areas like identity verification, fraud prevention, or credit risk.

However, for tasks such as navigating UI flows, collecting data, and submitting forms – areas where regulation has historically struggled – AI agents are already delivering better results. 

Innovation Beyond Regulation  

The financial services sector has long accepted that meaningful innovation often outpaces regulation. The rise of AI agents is a case in point.

These tools promise to deliver Open Finance through automation, not standardisation – and would do so faster, cheaper, and with broader functionality than regulated APIs ever could. 

 As intelligent agents become the primary interface between users and financial services, the institutions that design with them in mind will define the next phase of digital finance.

Those that don’t may find themselves building infrastructure for regulation that’s already being bypassed by technology.