Opening a Model Context Protocol server, or MCP server, to customers’ AI tools is becoming standard for fintech companies, but in payments a rogue agent does not just leak data — it moves money. That raises the bar for how agents are identified, logged and stopped.

Identity providers are adding controls for that separation, with Okta Inc. recently introducing runtime enforcement and a wider kill switch for AI agents. For a regulated payments company, the safest path is to fold agents into the controls that already govern people, according to James Simcox, chief operations and product officer of Equals Money PLC.

“As a financial services business, we’ve always had to audit everything our staff do,” Simcox said. “With agents, we also have to not only treat them like a human but [like] they’ve got their own identity [and like] they’ve got their own access.”

Simcox spoke with theCUBE Research’s Krista Case and co-host Rebecca Knight at Okta’s Oktane event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed managing AI agents securely while expanding customer access to data. (* Disclosure below.)

Agent identity, kill switches and a read-only MCP server

Equals already uses agents in customer-facing roles, and Simcox estimated that AI now writes about 92% of its code. That level of adoption makes agent identity and the ability to revoke access essential, according to Simcox.

“Having that identity on the agent is really, really key, but also the ability to cut them off,” he said. “If a human goes rogue, it’s one human. If an agent goes rogue, it could be 100,000 of them at the exact same time going crazy.”

Okta’s Agent Gateway kill switch is designed to revoke every active token held by a compromised agent. Equals can already cancel agent tokens, but the process is manual, according to Simcox. What the company wants is detection that acts on its own.

“What we really need is that automated view of going, this agent’s not behaving like it’s supposed to. It’s meant to be the email change guy and he’s not doing that,” he said. “So let’s just kill everything right now.”

Equals applies the same caution to customer-controlled agents. The company operates as though it bears full liability for customer-side errors and reviews each flow multiple times, according to Simcox.

“If you use the AI tools available in your [enterprise resource planning] package or whatever [and] attach it to our MCP server, maybe we can just make that data exchange way quicker,” Simcox said. “We have made a choice, though, that customers can’t instruct payments through MCP. It’s data read-only for now, or write for nonsensitive stuff.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Okta’s Oktane event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Oktane 2026 event. Neither Okta, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE