Anthropic adds a Claude feature that reads bank activity via Plaid

In short: Anthropic is rolling out a new Claude “Personal Finance” feature that can connect to your bank and card accounts through Plaid to answer questions about your spending.

What happened

Anthropic says Claude, its chatbot, can now connect to bank and credit card accounts using Plaid. Plaid is a service many apps use to link to banks safely, like a bridge between two systems.

After you connect an account, you can ask questions like “where did my money go this month,” and Claude will produce a summary. It can group spending into categories such as rent and utilities, shopping, and food.

Claude can also answer broader questions, like what bills are left before your next payday, whether you can afford a big purchase such as a holiday trip, and how much you might be able to save each month. Anthropic says the access is read-only, meaning Claude can look but cannot move money.

Anthropic also says Claude is not designed to give investment advice. Still, it can see the bank name, account names, account type, the last four digits of the account number, balances and credit limits, and up to two years of transaction history.

The feature is rolling out in beta this week for Claude Pro, Max, and Ultra subscribers in the US.

Why it matters

This makes it easier for some people to understand their finances without digging through bank statements. But it also means sharing very sensitive information with an AI tool, even if it cannot make transfers, so people will want to think carefully before connecting accounts.

Source: The Verge AI