THE CRUNCH
Anthropic is giving Claude a window into your money. A new Personal Finance feature connects the chatbot to your bank and card accounts through Plaid, the bank bridging platform, and is rolling out in beta this week to Claude Pro, Max and Ultra plan subscribers in the US.
Once connected, Claude can answer questions like "where did my money go this month" with a breakdown of spending by category, covering rent and utilities, shopping and food. It can also handle broader questions, such as which bills remain before your next payday, whether you can afford a big purchase like a holiday trip, and how much you could be saving each month.
The access is read-only, and because Plaid handles the connection, Claude never sees your banking passwords. It can view the bank's name, account names and types, the last four digits of the account number, balances, credit limits and up to two years of transaction history. Anthropic says Claude cannot move, manage or invest your money and "isn't designed to give investment advice".
Anthropic is not the first to try this: OpenAI introduced a similar Plaid-based feature for ChatGPT in May. Anthropic's press release also signals more to come, describing Personal Finance as "a first step" and saying the company is exploring how Claude might work alongside licensed financial professionals and regulated firms.