Learn · Agents · 7 min read
Giving an AI a bank account without giving it yours.
Headless banking only works if grants, policy, and audit are first-class. Here is the Glide model for MCP-connected agents.
Why agents break traditional banks
Banks assume a human in a browser with MFA. Agents need machine auth, scoped permissions, idempotent writes, and deterministic error codes.
MCP tools
Glide’s MCP gateway exposes tools for reads (balances, entities, quotes) and gated writes (send, convert, invest, multisig lifecycle). Stages roll out behind flags so production can soak safely.
Policy + step-up
Before money moves, policy envelopes evaluate. High-risk actions mint step-up sigils bound to tool, principal, vault, amount, and counterparty — not a reusable “approve everything” token.
Operator controls
Kill-switch, grant revocation, and activity feeds exist so a runaway agent loop can be stopped without rewriting the agent.