The role of banking is shifting from a restrictive gatekeeper of data to an enabler that provides secure access to financial AI tools.
Nate Gruendemann, Product Manager at Grasshopper Bank, explains why this change requires a new mindset where banks see their primary role as providing secure infrastructure.
He predicts a split between banks that embrace this philosophy and those that try to protect their legacy systems, framing the future of banking as a '"financial infrastructure layer."
Banks have long played the part of gatekeepers, locking client data inside their own apps and systems. As conversational AI becomes the central interface for managing a business’s digital life, the job of a bank is shifting: from restrictive guard to trusted enabler, giving clients secure access to use their own financial data in the AI tools they already rely on.
We spoke with Nate Gruendemann, Product Manager at Grasshopper Bank, who has built a career creating tools for the startup and small business economy. His current work on the bank’s new MCP launch is reimagining how banks fit into a future where AI sits at the center of business life.
For Grasshopper, the new approach began by addressing a practical problem: the clunky, insecure ways businesses were analyzing their finances with AI. Gruendemann notes that most owners were stuck with awkward, manual processes; Grasshopper’s answer is a live, secure feed that delivers data directly into the AI tools clients already use.
Spreadsheet struggles: "We see business owners scrambling to download spreadsheets, reports, and bank statements from every corner of the internet, then uploading them into ChatGPT or Claude just to give the AI a glimpse of their financial world," said Gruendemann. "It’s clunky, it’s insecure, and the moment that data is uploaded, it’s already going stale."
Gatekeeper, no more: "The role of banks is going to change. Instead of being a gatekeeper of data locked inside our app and our systems, we at Grasshopper believe that our job is to be an enabler for our clients and their businesses. We're providing the secure foundation so our clients can unlock the value in their own data in whatever environment they choose."
Of course, allowing AI access to financial data requires a certain level of trust. Gruendemann's counterpoint is simple: the market has already placed enormous trust in AI for many aspects of daily life. From that perspective, asking an AI for a bank balance becomes a small, logical extension of existing behavior. To ensure that security and trust remain at the forefront, Grasshopper takes a "crawl, walk, run" approach where safeguards are built in from the start.
Keeping the treasure safe: "The most important safeguard that we have right now is that the access is read-only. The AI can act as an analyst, but it can't act as a treasurer. Think of it like they can only read your balances and your transaction data, but they can't go and take any action on your behalf."
The "crawl" and "walk" phases focus on these read-only tasks, helping business owners do more with less by requesting information such as their average monthly burn rate and remaining runway, or by asking for the generation of a simple cash flow report. The roadmap will then transition to a "run" phase, where the AI assumes a more autonomous role, part of a larger industry movement toward secure transaction capabilities. Recognizing the risks, Gruendemann emphasizes that this future will require safeguards, including a "human in the loop" with ultimate "veto power."
AI takes the wheel: "In the not-so-distant future, AI will begin to take on more ownership and action on behalf of people. With the proper safeguards in place, clients will be able to explicitly grant AI the authority to take actions on their behalf. These use cases could include asking ChatGPT to send a wire to a vendor, or instructing Gemini to generate a cash flow statement and send it to an accountant."
Ultimately, Gruendemann explains that this change requires a complete shift in a bank's mindset. He predicts a future where banking becomes more of a "financial infrastructure layer," with AI interacting with the bank more than the clients it represents. The move toward AI-driven value is beginning to rewrite enterprise-level strategy. Under this model, a bank's primary purpose becomes providing the secure foundation for clients to use their own data as they see fit.
That transformation could create a clear dividing line in the industry, he says. "I think there's going to be a bifurcation between the banks that are trying to protect what they've built and the banks that truly see their clients' data as their data."
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