Anchorage Digital introduced Agentic Banking, enabling AI agents to gain regulated access to financial infrastructure. The project is being developed in collaboration with Google Cloud.
Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S. focused on institutional clients, announced the launch of Agentic Banking, a financial infrastructure designed for autonomous AI agents.
Agentic Banking is positioned as an infrastructure layer that provides:
- digital identity for AI agents;
- permission controls;
- transaction auditing;
- settlement capabilities across both traditional financial systems and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
The solution is built on Anchorage Digital’s regulated banking model, offering access to programmable financial services within a compliant framework.
A key component of the system is a controlled access mechanism for capital. It includes spending limits, real-time risk monitoring, and immutable transaction logs, allowing financial institutions to maintain full control over operations initiated by AI agents.
According to Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, the initiative aims to establish secure mechanisms for AI agents to interact with funds. He noted that as the industry shifts from assistive AI tools to autonomous systems capable of executing transactions independently, the lack of supporting infrastructure became a major bottleneck.
McCauley added that financial institutions are actively testing automation in treasury management, payments, and procurement, but are relying on systems not originally designed for autonomous algorithms. He emphasized that current solutions lack proper frameworks for agent identity, policy enforcement, and regulated capital management.
Moreover, Anchorage Digital announced a partnership with Google Cloud. Under the initiative, Google will focus on developing protocols and infrastructure that enable AI agents to interact, negotiate, and coordinate actions. Anchorage Digital will serve as the settlement layer, ensuring transaction execution and regulatory compliance.
The collaboration also includes the development of cloud infrastructure for institutional digital asset use cases. The companies plan to integrate custody services, key management, trading, staking, and operational processes into a unified B2B2C platform. This is expected to simplify the adoption of stablecoins and digital assets within financial institutions’ products.
Autonomous AI agents are gradually becoming participants in economic processes, increasing demand for solutions that enable their interaction with financial systems. For example, MoonPay introduced a solution allowing AI agents to independently manage digital assets, Visa launched tools for using AI agents in e-commerce, and Ant Group developed infrastructure to support interaction between autonomous AI agents within the digital economy. For more on how AI-driven automation is transforming financial services, read this article at CP Media.
