Financial apps are where an AI agent's errors cost real money, so ByteDance's retreat leaves banks setting the terms for agent access, with open banking interfaces the likelier route.
ByteDance’s Doubao Phone Assistant has switched off its own ability to operate financial apps. In an update to its list of apps that refuse AI operation, published on its official website on October 21, the assistant added an entry saying it "proactively" restricts operations in financial apps, covering "but not limited to" banking, trust services, payments, internet finance and credit lending, according to Beijing News, which quoted the wording in full. Doubao added that it had "adjusted in a timely manner" in response to feedback, and that parties could contact it at any time to change their declarations.
The change is a follow-up to the opt-out wave EastFrontier reported on October 16, when more than 150 apps declined to let Doubao’s agent operate inside them. What is new is the direction of the move: until now, apps had to refuse individually. Doubao itself has now drawn a line around an entire sector, including apps that never asked to be excluded.
The Paper put the October 14 refusal list at 155 apps: 66 from Tencent’s ecosystem, including WeChat, QQ and Yuanbao, 23 from Alibaba’s, including Taobao, Alipay and Amap, 14 from Kuaishou, 11 from Meituan, seven from Ezviz and 34 independent apps such as DeepSeek, Kimi, Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu, WPS, several banks and the three major telecom carriers. The list applies to two ZTE-made Nubia handsets, the M153 and the NaviX Ultra.
Banks were already on the list, and now sit in their own section
Financial institutions were among the earliest refusers. Jiemian reported that the October 14 list named the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Merchants Bank and Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank alongside several other financial institutions. The October 21 update restructures that. Southern Metropolis Daily reported that individual bank entries, among them ICBC, China Merchants Bank, ICBC Asia and Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank, no longer appear on their own, replaced by the separate financial-app category.
The overall list is still growing. Doubao’s refusal list now runs to 166 apps, up from 155 a week earlier, with additions including 58.com, Keep, Hikvision, Huazhu and Hupu. Southern Metropolis Daily is so far the only outlet to report that total. Doubao updates the list every Wednesday, and developers can decline at any point, with a response promised within three working days, the paper said.
The financial restriction is a return to an earlier position. Beijing News noted that the first-generation Doubao Phone Assistant, launched last year, also limited financial apps, saying at the time that banking and payment apps bear directly on users’ fund security and that it had temporarily removed the capability as a precaution, even though sensitive operations already required user authorization.
Screen automation leaves banks unable to tell who is acting
The tension is built into how the agent works. Doubao operates apps by reading the screen and simulating taps and inputs. Its 《屏幕自动化操作声明协议》, the Screen Automation Execution Protocol (SAEP), launched with the consumer version of the assistant on September 14, as EastFrontier covered at the time, and its 30-day public notice period ended on October 14. Jiemian described the protocol as adding identity verification, permission declarations, page restrictions and operation logs, with developers deciding which pages the AI may enter, which actions it may take and when the user must take back control. In principle, a bank could allow balance checks and statement reading while blocking transfers and password changes.
Bank sources quoted by Jiemian argued the protocol solves only part of the problem. An unnamed bank software developer said that when an outside agent operates the app, the bank can see the device, network and sequence of actions but cannot be certain whether the user or the AI is acting. The industry also lacks settled rules for dividing liability among banks, users, AI vendors and phone makers, the developer said. An unnamed executive at a large state-owned bank warned that such agents could lower the barrier for fraud operations. The Paper cited three concerns from industry analysts: account and fund safety, leaks of sensitive data, and unclear liability, noting that screen recording can capture pop-ups, notifications and verification codes, and that transfers or securities trades are hard to reverse.
Interfaces controlled by banks look like the next route in
The likelier path for AI agents in finance runs through the banks’ own systems. Wang Pengbo, chief analyst at Botong Consulting, told Jiemian that open banking interfaces are a more reasonable route than screen-based clicking, with read-only information opened under controls and high-risk actions such as transfers kept within the bank’s control. Bank sources in the same report proposed grading operations by risk, with balance and bill queries allowed under explicit authorization and full logging, and payments, loan applications and password changes requiring manual confirmation and the bank’s own authentication.
Outside finance, the picture is mixed. Southern Metropolis Daily reported that the NaviX Ultra’s task feature marks some apps as unsupported, while apps from ByteDance’s and ZTE’s ecosystems, along with Weibo, iQiyi, Bilibili, JD and Ctrip, appear as operable. The Wednesday list updates will show whether any bank or payment provider negotiates a narrower form of access, which would be the first sign that the SAEP model can work in finance.