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Financial Services · Autonomous autonomy
Financial Approval
An agent that approves low-value, low-risk payments automatically within strict limits. This is the highest-autonomy pattern, demanding the strongest controls.
36 HAL Score / 40 Accountable
Workflow
- 1 Payment request received
- 2 Agent validates against policy and limits
- 3 Within-limit, low-risk payments approved automatically
- 4 Anything else escalated for human approval
- 5 All approvals reconciled and reviewed daily
Governance design
- ✓Strict value, frequency, and payee allow-list enforced in code.
- ✓Hard limit: new payees always require a human.
- ✓Dual control retained above a low threshold.
- ✓Immutable approval log with daily reconciliation.
Escalation paths
- ↗New or modified payee → human approver, always.
- ↗Value above threshold → dual human approval.
- ↗Anomalous pattern → auto-pause and owner alert.
Ownership model
Finance Director, with the financial controller as deputy.
Lessons learned
- The "new payee always human" limit blocked the most common fraud and error path outright.
- Daily reconciliation turned an autonomous system into one that was continuously, demonstrably accountable.