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KEEL

Early access

Agents can spend. KEEL decides how much.

KEEL is the treasury layer for AI agents. It gives each agent an allowance based on the business's real cash forecast, checks every spend before it happens and stops a runaway agent in one move.

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Machines with money need brakes.

On 1 August 2012, a trading system at Knight Capital went wrong. It sent more than 4 million orders into the market while trying to fill 212 customer orders. In 45 minutes the firm lost more than $460 million.

The US regulator had adopted the rule that should have stopped it in 2010: brokers must keep pre-trade risk controls under their own direct control. Knight's controls could not stop orders that went past the firm's capital limits.

Agents now buy software, pay invoices and top up cloud accounts on their own. KEEL is their pre-trade control.

4,000,000+orders sent
212customer orders it meant to fill
45 minfrom the first order to the stop
$460M+lost

Sources: US Securities and Exchange Commission, press release 2013-222; SEC Market Access Rule, 2010.

Watch a runaway agent meet KEEL.

A business runs four agents with a safe allowance of €2,400 for today. Around midday the Research agent gets stuck in a loop. Switch KEEL off and on, start your own loop, or use the kill switch. Synthetic data.

Agent spending today Safe allowance Over the allowance
  • Support agentOperationsSpending
  • Research agentGrowthSpending
  • Procurement agentOperationsSpending
  • Ads agentGrowthSpending
€0Spent today
€2,400Allowance left
€0Stopped by KEEL

Safe allowance today
= expected inflows €18,200
− payroll €9,600
− tax €3,100
− rent €2,100
− buffer €1,000
= €2,400

    How KEEL works.

    Controls owned by finance, across every vendor, card and account your agents touch.

    Pre-spend gate

    Before every payment, API call or top-up, KEEL checks which agent is asking, what its mandate allows and whether there will be enough money tomorrow. The answer is allow, partly allow, ask a person or deny, always with a reason.

    Forecast allowance

    Each agent's limit comes from the cash forecast: expected inflows minus payroll, tax, rent and other commitments, minus a buffer. Limits move with the business instead of sitting at a number someone guessed.

    Three-level kill switch

    Stop one agent, a team or the whole fleet. KEEL does it on its own when spending turns abnormal, and anyone with the right role can do it in one tap.

    Fleet balancing

    A daily view of every agent's spending against cash. Move budget to the agents that earn it, pause the rest, or ask the bank for credit when a worthwhile purchase can't be covered.

    Evidence-grade ledger

    Every agent payment carries its mandate, reason, receipt, VAT and cost centre, ready for auditors, insurers and courts.

    Works across rails

    Limits are enforced through provider controls, virtual cards and bank sub-accounts, so no single vendor's dashboard is the last line.

    Why it will be required.

    Supervisors are already asking for kill switches and controls that sit outside the AI itself, and the spending is growing fast.

    • Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden said financial frameworks were not built with autonomous agents in mind, and raised the idea of kill switches for agentic AI.

      Result Sense report

    • The Reserve Bank of India proposed that no AI model in a bank should run without the ability to shut it down immediately.

      Business Today

    • Gartner expects AI agents to handle more than $15 trillion of business purchasing by 2028.

      Digital Commerce 360

    Who KEEL is for.

    Banks and e-money firms

    Offer business customers a sanctioned way to let agents spend. Keep that spending on your rails, and lend at the moment an agent needs more than its allowance.

    Businesses running agents

    One brake across every AI vendor, card and account, owned by finance and tied to cash. Start with the AI subscriptions and API bills you already pay.

    Questions finance teams ask.

    Don't AI providers have spend limits already?

    Some do, per vendor, and many only send an alert. KEEL is one brake across vendors, cards and accounts, tied to cash rather than to a fixed number.

    Who is responsible if KEEL blocks a payment?

    The business sets the policies. KEEL applies them, explains each decision and logs it. A person can approve an exception at any time.

    Does KEEL need access to our bank?

    KEEL reads balances and transactions through open banking or your bank's API, and enforces limits through cards, sub-accounts or provider controls.

    When can we use it?

    Early access is open to businesses with significant AI spending. Bank pilots follow as agentic payments scale.

    Join early access.

    Tell us how your agents spend today. Early-access members help us set the defaults, and banks can join as launch partners.

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