Data Science and Business Analytics Intern

Fed's Waller eyes agentic AI commerce. Agentic AI has a toehold in B2C transactions, but has a way to go to capture B2B transactions, Waller said at the Sibos conference. Artificial intelligence and autonomous AI agents will fuel the next evolutionary leap in global and cross-border payments, Federal Reserve Board Gov. Christopher Waller said during a speech at Sibos 2026 in Miami. The payment industry's early adoption of machine learning and large language models has helped combat payment fraud and quicken reconciliation and similar tasks, said Waller. "Now it is helping build the foundation infrastructure for AI agents to operate more broadly in the economy," he added. "These agents can plan and execute multistep processes using LLMs, enabling those agents to transact autonomously." Waller separated agentic commerce into two models: agentic-assisted and agentic-delegated. In the agentic-assisted model, the agent is primarily for product search and discovery, while the buyer remains in control. In the agentic-delegated model, "a buyer grants authority to an AI agent to shop and make payments on their behalf. The buyer may specify some constraints and set up guardrails, but the agent operates autonomously." Because agentic-delegated commerce could increase the risk of unintended purchases, Waller suggested deploying more extensive trust mechanisms and guardrails. Agentic B2B payments. Although agentic commerce has gained traction in consumer-to-business transactions with personal AI assistants, Waller said that business-to-business purchases would be fertile ground for agentic-delegated commerce. "The purchases are often recurring and abide by a set of rules, such as approved suppliers and budget limits, which create natural guidelines for agents," he said. "Agents could also potentially negotiate terms with suppliers and develop payment strategies to optimize working capital." However, the industry would need to develop and deploy robust controls and monitoring capabilities since B2B transactions typically carry a higher value than their consumer counterparts. Also, unlike consumer-to-business transactions, AI agents executing B2B transactions will need to support a broad range of payment rails, including the Automated Clearing House, wire transfers, instant payments, and credit cards. The biggest barrier to agentic commerce adoption is building trust mechanisms between buyers and sellers, which changes the payment authentication paradigm, said Waller. "The question shifts from proving that a buyer is an authorized payer to proving that an agent has the authority to pay on the buyer's behalf. Capturing this will require new authentication approaches." He also noted two key questions about the future of agentic commerce: whether it will migrate toward platform-specific or interoperable standards. The latter would work across ecommerce systems, agent interfaces, and payment methods. "In this sense, they could help to level the playing field for smaller merchants and payment providers seeking to operate in this space." The payment industry still needs to take significant steps before it can bring agentic commerce to fruition, including developing standards for how agents can "carry identity, consent, and payment credentials across the full ecommerce stack," as well as striking the proper balance between convenience and friction regarding agent authorization, Waller said. These steps will require the payments industry to balance innovation with the safety, integrity, and stability that underpin trust in payments, he concluded.

Watchdog finds no criminality in Fed renovation that drew Trump's scrutiny. The Fed's inspector general did fault the central bank's board for mismanaging costs. Trump blamed ex-chair Jerome Powell and said he "should be forced to resign." 00:00 09:05 Sept. 30, 2026, 10:00 AM PDT / Updated Sept. 30, 2026, 1:12 PM PDT WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve's independent watchdog said Wednesday it found no reasonable grounds to believe there was a violation of federal law in a multibillion-dollar renovation project that drew criticism from President Donald Trump and short-lived scrutiny from federal prosecutors. But the central bank's board "had not effectively executed" a contract and its cost-management provisions, according to a 120-page report from the Office of the Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Still, the report "did not identify administrative misconduct" nor any "reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred." Later Wednesday, Trump blamed the cost overruns on former Fed chair Jerome Powell, long a target of the president's ire. "This is Jerome Powell's fault, and he should be forced to resign, IMMEDIATELY! If he doesn't resign, he should be sued, at the highest level, by the United States Government, for either corruption or incompetence, both of which are completely unacceptable," the president wrote in a post on Truth Social. An attorney for Powell didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The inspector general's report follows a more than yearlong review into the construction site on the central bank's Washington, D.C., campus, which became a fixation of the Trump administration as the president also pressured Powell to cut interest rates. Powell, whom Trump nominated for the top Fed job during his first term, remained on the Fed's board after Kevin Warsh took over as chair in May. Even after four years of construction and over $2 billion in awarded construction costs, the Fed board had "not established a guaranteed maximum price" for the project, and had set up "insufficient" internal project governance to manage a project of such "magnitude and complexity," the watchdog said. Several components of the renovation's design that drew scrutiny - the building's marble, water features and a garden terrace - "did not materially contribute to subsequent cost increases," the watchdog found. The removal of four water features from the renovation plans would not result in significant cost savings, one official told the watchdog, because landscaping and other costs would be needed to replace the fountains. The watchdog said cost overruns resulted from "inflation, limited subcontractor bidding, substantial Board interior fit-out design changes, and challenging site conditions." Moving from a design that focused on closed offices over open workspaces after construction began, the watchdog found, was a "clear example of the consequences of ineffective project management" and "extended the project's duration and its exposure to inflationary pressures." In a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Warsh wrote that as chairman of the board he agreed about the need to complete the work "in the most efficient and transparent way possible" and said the General Services Administration would be the project executive, effective immediately. Warsh, who had also been a critic of the renovation, said the American people were owed "a prudent and conscientious use of public funds." The GSA is the federal agency tasked with overseeing the federal government's office buildings, technology services and real estate. The renovation became a point of contention during a June 25, 2025, Senate hearing. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., asked Powell about the Fed's renovation project, which caught the White House's attention. Scott accused Powell of having "spent billions on lavish renovations" that included "rooftop terraces, custom elevators that open into VIP dining rooms, white marble finishes and even a private art collection." Powell denied Scott's accusations. "There's no [VIP] dining room. There's no new marble. We took down the old marble, we're putting it back up. We'll have to use new marble where some of the old marble broke. But there's no special elevators. There's just old elevators that have been there. There are no new water features. There's no beehives, and there's no roof terrace gardens," the then-Fed chair said. On Wednesday, Scott he welcomes the inspector general's findings. "Inflation does not change the Fed's responsibility to manage its resources prudently and be accountable to Congress," he wrote in a statement. The Senate Banking Committee, which Scott chairs, "will continue rigorous oversight to ensure the Fed is transparent and stays focused on its mission," he added. Shortly after the June hearing, Trump's Office of Management and Budget director, Russell Vought, wrote Powell a letter saying that the president was "extremely troubled by your management of the Federal Reserve System," citing the renovation. "Comparable federal building renovations cost many orders of magnitude less than the office you are building for yourself on the taxpayer's dime," Vought added. He later likened the office building renovation to "a palace." The Federal Reserve System is not funded by taxpayer money. It is self-funded by the fees it charges on services such as processing checks. It is also funded by the interest it earns on its vast bond portfolio. Powell denied Vought's allegations, saying that the central bank had "taken great care to ensure the project is carefully overseen since it was first approved by the Board in 2017." As noted by Powell, the project was first approved by the Fed's entire seven-member Board of Governors. Powell became Fed chair in 2018 after Trump nominated him in late 2017. Touring the project alongside Powell and Scott, the president began suggesting that the price tag had ballooned even further. Powell sharply responded, "I haven't heard that." Handed a piece of paper by Trump, Powell said that Trump was including a previously completed building project in his new, higher cost estimate. The Fed also launched a website, which noted that the price tag of the project had risen beyond its first estimate due to changes to the design after voluntarily consulting review boards, and the rising cost of materials, equipment and labor. It also said unforeseen circumstances, such as "more asbestos than anticipated," contributed. Still, throughout the year, Trump openly mused about firing Powell, which sometimes rattled markets. A Federal Reserve chair has never been fired before. After months of more muted complaints about the project, in January a new revelation about it rocked Washington. In an extraordinary video statement posted to the Fed's social media pages on a Sunday night in January, Powell announced that "the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas." He said a criminal probe had been launched against him and the central bank over his earlier Senate testimony. "No one - certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve - is above the law," Powell said. "But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure." He added: "This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions - or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation." Those subpoenas were later blocked by a judge, who said that Trump's handpicked U.S. attorney in D.C. had "produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime." But the damage had already been done. Trump's U.S. attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro - whose aides tried to tour the Fed amid the investigation - said her office closed its probe and referred the matter to the inspector general. The watchdog already had an open inquiry at Powell's request. Pirro, a longtime Trump friend, kept her threat to investigate Powell on the table, however. As a result, Powell decided to stay on the Fed board when his term as chair ended on May 22, denying the Trump administration an opportunity to fill an open spot. Pirro's office was reviewing the inspector general's report Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson said. The Senate Banking Committee's top-ranking Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, applauded the report and said it confirms that "Trump lapdogs U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and Attorney General Todd Blanche have no basis to restart the President's witch hunt" against Powell. "The President should quit trying to fire Fed governors to cover up for his economic failures and instead stop his chaotic tariffs and end his war in Iran," she said in a statement. Under Warsh, meanwhile, the Fed has raised rates once and is expected to do so again this year. Ryan J. Reilly reported from Washington; Steve Kopack from New York. Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News. Steve Kopack is a senior reporter at NBC News covering business and the economy.

Federal Reserve watchdog finds no criminal wrongdoing in renovation probe of Jerome Powell. The Federal Reserve's internal watchdog cleared former Chair Jerome Powell of any criminal wrongdoing in the investigation of the central bank's costly renovation project. However, the report criticized Fed management for failing to control costs effectively, which soared to $2.5 billion.