
Griffin begins build of agentic bank
1
Griffin, which secured a full banking licence in March last year, says the initiative is the beginning of massive technological platform shift, which will see people delegating more and more of their work to AI.
"There have been a few test cases floating around of people getting AI agents to engage in financial transactions, but these are generally limited to proofs-of-concept like getting an agent to buy a cup of coffee," states a spokesperson. "We think there is much further to go...but to get there, the financial system has to be fundamentally rewired to accommodate a world in which agents can freely transact — while still retaining appropriate safeguards."
Potential use cases cited include end-to-end wealth management, payment admin and transactional capabilities.
"This is early for us - we're in beta - but it shows the power of what's possible," says the bank in a statement. "You can use the Griffin MCP server to have an agent open accounts, make payments, and analyse historic events. You can also use it to build complete prototypes of your own fintech applications on top of the Griffin API - which we're already seeing customers doing in real time."
Currently limited to a sandbox environment, Griffin is now inviting customers for input and to get it deployed in a production environment.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Guardian
20 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Starmer faces task of persuading Trump to take different path on Gaza crisis
Moments after Air Force One touched down at Prestwick on Friday, for a trip in which politics will take as big a billing as golf, Donald Trump was asked about his relationship with Keir Starmer. 'I like your prime minister. He's slightly more liberal than I am, as you've probably heard. But he's a good man,' the US president told reporters. At a time when the UK wants Trump's ear on numerous weighty issues, his response to questions about the 'special relationship' will have given Downing Street some reassurance. But it has been hard won. Starmer has been clear since before Trump's re-election that he would work with him if it was in Britain's national interest. There have been uncomfortable moments, but so far his decision to align himself with the US president has broadly paid off. Most notable was the economic deal agreed by the two leaders which slashes some of Trump's tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, and which – even though it is not yet fully implemented – the UK government hopes will be a first step towards a closer trading relationship. Starmer, along with other western allies, has also helped encourage Trump to shift his position on Ukraine. After initially siding with Vladimir Putin and appearing to blame Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the invasion, the US president now declares himself 'very unhappy' with his Russian counterpart. The prime minister now faces his toughest diplomatic task of all: trying to persuade Trump to take a different path on the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. Even getting the issue on the agenda will not have been straightforward, with the White House not regarding Gaza as a priority. Trump is the only international leader whom the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, listens to – and even then, not all of the time – so getting the US president's ear at this precise moment is an opportunity not to be squandered. With international fury over the situation on the ground in Gaza growing, Starmer has also been under pressure domestically – from his cabinet, Labour MPs and increasingly the public – to take further action against Israel. Government advisers are defensive – citing what the UK has already done to hold Israel to account since Labour came to power – and promising further action will follow, even if it is not clear what that might constitute. They point to the UK restoring funding to the UN agency Unrwa, sanctioning far-right Israeli ministers and those who committed settler violence, breaking off trade negotiations with Israel, backing the legitimacy of the international criminal court and restricting arms licences to Israel (though not preventing them entirely). Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion The initial urgency is around humanitarian aid, with mass starvation spreading across Gaza, and Starmer will be hoping to persuade Trump that the situation on the ground will only worsen unless the Israelis fully lift their blockade of almost all aid into the territory. The longer-term prize, however, would be a ceasefire. Starmer will press Trump to revive ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, after the US and Israel withdrew their negotiation teams from Qatar last week. Getting them back round the table to agree a 60-day break from fighting is a prerequisite to a more permanent cessation of violence. The window of opportunity is narrow: the Israeli parliament is not sitting until October, which gives Netanyahu the cover he would need to agree a deal. But Starmer knows Trump is the only international figure who can put pressure on him to do so. Only at that point does Starmer feel the UK could follow France and formally recognise a Palestine state. No 10 insiders insist it is a 'matter of when, not if' and David Lammy, the foreign secretary, will be at a UN conference this week to establish a pathway to formal recognition. To the deep frustration of many in his party, the prime minister last week rejected a call to follow France in recognising Palestine amid concerns the move would be largely symbolic without a ceasefire in place, and that issue could overshadow the talks with Trump. But that means that even more rides on Monday's meeting with the US president. It will be a test of whether the energy put into maintaining a good relationship with Trump has been worth it. And it will also show how far Starmer really is prepared to push to help bring an end to the catastrophe in Gaza.


Times
an hour ago
- Times
Meet Charles Emond, the Canadian backing Sizewell C with £1.7bn
'There's always risk in a transaction,' says Charles Emond. The chief executive of La Caisse is keen to stress that he and the other equity investors named last week in the financing of the Sizewell C nuclear power station project are not getting a completely free ride from British taxpayers and electricity billpayers. Billpayers will have £1 a month added to their electricity bills from this autumn to help finance the gigantic project. UK taxpayers will stand ready to foot the bill if the construction costs rise above a certain point. But the equity investors putting in £8.5 billion aren't entirely free of exposure if things go wrong, he says. Even so, analysts believe that La Caisse and other investors, which include the British Gas owner Centrica and the French energy group EDF, have got a bit of a steal as a result of the way the deal has been structured. Even Emond admits the terms have been 'de-risked to an acceptable level'. La Caisse may be a new name to British readers, but it is a gigantic institution, one of the biggest pension fund groups in Canada with $473 billion to invest. It has just changed its name from Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, an institution responsible for paying pensions to six million Canadians. When Rachel Reeves visited North America last autumn to bang the drum for the UK, Emond was one of the people she went to see. La Caisse for years was a shareholder in Heathrow, while it has also bought into the London Array, the forest of 175 wind turbines in the outer Thames Estuary. La Caisse, which has not invested in nuclear power before, has committed £1.7 billion to Sizewell C in return for a 20 per cent stake. It will be the biggest single equity investor in the project, which when built will produce enough reliable electricity to power the equivalent of six million homes. Emond, a former banker with Scotiabank, likes the way the financing of the Suffolk-based project has been structured, which means investors are more protected than they were in the case of its sister station, Hinkley Point C, which has already gone hugely over budget. Sizewell, he says, is 'trailblazing' because 'it institutionalises nuclear from an investor perspective'. That will make it much easier for other future nuclear projects to raise private-sector cash. • Why a Canadian pension fund has put wind in my sails The structuring of the deal has 'shed a different light on nuclear' as well as chiming with La Caisse's push towards net zero. It puts nuclear into 'the zipcode of reasons it is attractive to capital providers like me'. Big, long-running infrastructure projects such as Sizewell C are perfect for pension funds which have to invest to produce income to meet defined benefit pension promises stretching decades into the future. If all goes well, Sizewell will produce inflation-protected returns for 60 years. It also fits in well with La Caisse's plan to make the UK 'our biggest overseas investment destination outside North America,' says Emond. He's a big fan of the UK, saying 'it checks all the boxes,' especially in an era of high geopolitical risk. La Caisse already has £17.8 billion of UK assets. Emond aims to lift that by £8 billion over five years, which means that after Sizewell C, he has another £6.3 billion of net investments to make. He gives a long list of Britain's attributes, naming rule of law, a business-friendly government and a big local financial centre as some of the factors important for foreign investors. 'There are all these things that, even before you look at a transaction, you say we like that sandbox.' • Welcome to Britain's biggest building site. There's a 'fish disco' Wasn't he put off at all by Britain's sluggish economy, low productivity growth and shaky public finances? No. 'It's not the growth in the economy that's the only criterion [for investing],' he says. The government's emphasis on infrastructure has made Britain especially attractive. La Caisse is by one measure the second biggest infrastructure investor in the world with $64 billion allocated to the asset class. La Caisse opened an office in London in 2016, from which it manages all its European operations. Emond recently hired Dame Sharon White, the former chairwoman of John Lewis Partnership, as head of Europe, to spearhead the investment drive. 'She's been great, providing exceptional leadership,' he says, adding that her experience of running a regulator, Ofcom, was helpful because of the many regulated industries La Caisse tends to invest in. Which sectors in the UK is La Caisse now looking at? He mentions information technology, telecoms, renewable energy, transportation, insurance, private credit and real estate. 'For us there's a pretty good set of opportunities. Our London office has teams for all asset classes.' Insurance and real estate have been rich seams already. La Caisse has been a long-time backer of Howden Group, the privately owned insurance broker recently valued at well over £10 billion, and is a backer of Inigo Insurance. Property ventures include PLP and Greystar, and, on the debt side, a £525 million credit line to Blackstone-owned St Modwen. • Centrica really can't lose at Sizewell It is also a big investor in renewable energy through last year, buying a 25 per cent stake in First Hydro, the group that operates two pumped storage projects in Snowdonia, as well as the 25 per cent holding in the London Array. Other investments include a 19.3 per cent stake in Eurostar, the cross-channel train operator. Another is FNZ, a private company that provides software to wealth managers and was valued in a past fundraising at $20 billion. It hasn't been plain sailing for Emond in his first five years. In Montreal, the company has come under heavy criticism for delays and overruns on a mass transit project Réseau express métropolitain or REM. 'We took a lot of flak,' Emond admits, but says it was funding the project at much lower cost per kilometre of track than other projects. 'Every time they [Quebecers] take the train, it helps fill their pension,' he adds. Another potential blow is the charging by the US Justice Department of executives from La Caisse and other companies with conspiring to pay $265 million in bribes to Indian state government officials to secure solar power contracts. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also pressing civil charges in connection with the same alleged scheme. La Caisse has said it is co-operating with the US authorities. As one of the so-called Maple Eight big Canadian pension funds, La Caisse is a role model for policymakers in the UK trying to encourage consolidation of UK funds to build scale and in-house investment expertise that is then confident about putting money into private equity and infrastructure. Reeves is introducing measures to encourage smaller schemes to merge. Emond says that is the right direction of travel, but cautions that it took decades for La Caisse to build scale and expert teams. 'It doesn't get done over a long weekend,' he says.


The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Hated Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri refusing to sell club for less than £100m in another huge blow
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY owner Dejphon Chansiri still wants a staggering £100m for the troubled club. The Owls are still in debt and face signing restrictions with a reduced squad. 1 Wednesday missed player pay days for two consecutive months in June and July. Earlier this month, SunSport reported that Chansiri owes more than £4million in football debts — which will have to be paid by whoever buys the club. The extent of the cash woes emerged during takeover bids by several groups in the prior weeks. Earlier this month it was reported that US businessman Tilman Fertitta was in talks to buy the crisis club. Fertitta, 68, is the US ambassador for Italy and is an ally of Donald Trump. The businessman also owns the Houston Rockets in the NBA. Wednesday manager Danny Rohl initially did not show up for pre season amid the club's woes. The 36-year-old eventually returned but has had to work with a threadbare squad. The Owls beat Mansfield 2-0 in a training ground friendly yesterday. Club stalwarts Barry Bannan and Callum Paterson did not feature, despite having trained with the Owls in recent weeks. Both players have been out of contract since June 30. It remains to be seen whether Wednesday's sorry situation will have improved by their Championship opener against Leicester City on August 10.