AI Agents Could Drain Bank Deposits and Boost Stablecoin Adoption, Apollo Warns

TL;DR:

• Apollo warned that AI Agents could drain banks’ cheap deposits by automatically moving them toward higher-yield accounts.
• Torsten Slok noted that tools like Meta Muse could redirect funds from checking accounts earning 0.1% interest toward options paying between 3.3% and 5% annually.
• Coinbase’s x402 protocol, which has already processed over 188 million transactions, already offers the payment rails these agents would need to operate with stablecoins.

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Torsten Slok, chief economist and partner at Apollo Global Management —a firm managing approximately $1 trillion in assets—, warned that AI Agents could trigger a slow-motion bank run.

In a note published Sunday under the title “Is an Agentic Bank Run Coming?”, Slok noted that assistants like Meta Muse could soon automatically redirect household cash toward higher-yield accounts, rather than leaving it parked in checking accounts with a national average of just 0.1% annual interest.

Agents Lurking Over Deposits

Slok highlighted that platforms such as Revolut, SoFi, Varo, LendingClub, and Wealthfront offer between 3.3% and 5% annual interest on deposits. On a $10,000 balance, that represents $100 in annual interest compared to the mere $10 generated by a traditional checking account. If households were to adopt this technology en masse to optimize their cash returns, banks —which rely on those cheap deposits to extend credit— could see their ability to operate compromised, with consequences for the financial system as a whole.

Agentic finance goes beyond advisory: these systems act autonomously, monitoring balances in real time, comparing yields across institutions, and moving funds without human intervention, returning them in time to cover scheduled expenses.

Market estimates vary by source. Mordor Intelligence valued the segment at $7.78 billion for 2026 and projects $43.52 billion by 2031, while MarketsandMarkets puts the AI agents market at approximately $845 million.

The x402 Protocol and Stablecoins: The Rails of the Future

Cryptocurrencies are already building the infrastructure these agents would need. Coinbase’s x402 protocol, the most widely used agentic payment standard, allows an AI agent to pay for online services with stablecoins in a matter of seconds, with no accounts, cards, or human approval required.

To date, the protocol has reportedly processed between 188 and 205 million transactions, with around 69,000 active bots. Cloudflare, Google, Visa, Mastercard, AWS, Circle, and Stripe are part of the x402 Foundation, now governed by the Linux Foundation. Nate Geraci, co-founder of the ETF Institute, had already noted that artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies will put pressure on the traditional banking model.