Banca d’Italia Official Urges Consumer Control of AI Payment Agents

Banca d’Italia Deputy Governor Sergio Nicoletti Altimari urged financial firms to give consumers control over AI agents after warning that an agent’s assigned limits may not reflect a customer’s intent.

Altimari spoke at the 13th Joint ESAs Consumer Protection Day in Rome on Nov. 4. His hypothetical involved a disputed transfer that could use valid credentials and stay within delegated limits without reflecting the consumer’s intent.

“Delegating tasks to AI should not mean losing control over financial decisions,” Altimari said. Consumers should be able to set an agent’s tasks and limits, monitor and challenge its actions, and know how to stop an operation or revoke an instruction.

He called on financial firms to verify identity, consent and authorization for significant decisions, and to keep agents’ actions traceable and auditable. Human oversight, he said, should reflect the potential effect of a decision on a customer’s finances. Responsibility to consumers should remain with people and institutions even when tasks are delegated to AI.

The remarks addressed financial services broadly and did not identify a cryptocurrency or blockchain payment system. Altimari announced no new rule or implementation timetable. In the United States, CFTC Chair Michael S. Selig has raised liability questions about trading by AI agents.