Claude can now read your bank accounts through Plaid. Who gets it, and what it sees

What Anthropic launched

On November 5, 2026, Anthropic announced Personal Finance in Claude: “you can securely connect your bank and card accounts and ask in your own words. Access is read-only, and Personal Finance can’t move, manage, or invest your money.”

It “starts rolling out in beta this week, on the Pro, Max, and Ultra plans in the US.” The help page adds that it works in Claude on the web, Claude Desktop, and the iOS and Android apps, and that “We’re rolling it out gradually, so you might not see it yet.”

Personal Finance is a page in Claude’s sidebar with widgets for “your spending, cash flow, accounts, subscriptions, upcoming bills, and short insights from Claude,” plus a chat. Anthropic’s examples are “Where did my money go this month?”, “Is that more than usual?” and “What’s an APR, and what has mine cost me this year?” It says Claude can point out “charges that hit twice, unexpected fees, or a bill that’s crept up all year,” and build a spending chart, a calendar of what’s due or a dashboard.

Anthropic also says what it isn’t: Personal Finance “isn’t designed to give investment advice,” has “no ads or sponsored recommendations,” and “doesn’t offer credit cards, loans, or savings accounts of its own.”

Who can use it

Plan	Personal Finance	Price, checked November 5
Free	Not available	$0
Pro	Beta, US only	$20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly
Max	Beta, US only	$100 a month
Ultra	Beta, US only	$200 a month
Team and Enterprise	Not available	Per seat

Prices are from Claude’s pricing page. Only US banks can be linked, and you can link up to 16. Outside the US, or on a VPN that connects from another country, Anthropic says the page “doesn’t appear until you’re back.”

What Claude can see

For the accounts you choose to share, the help page lists what Claude reads:

• Bank names
• Account names, types, and last four digits
• Balances and credit limits
• “Up to 24 months of transactions, including the amount, date, merchant, category, and your bank’s description”

For investments, loans and cards, “Claude reads balances and credit limits, not holdings, trades, rates, or terms.” One catch: “If your bank writes a full number into an account’s name or a transaction’s description, Claude may see it there.”

The connection goes through Plaid. You sign in to your bank in Plaid’s window, “so Claude doesn’t ask for or see your bank password.” That’s the kind of connection banks themselves recommend over handing an agent your login, as our memo on Bank of America’s warning explains. Engadget reports that Plaid connects to more than 12,000 financial institutions.

Training, chats and sharing

Training depends on where you ask. “When you chat with Claude in the Personal Finance hub, those conversations aren’t used to train our models. For anything you share with Claude outside the hub, your privacy settings apply.” Claude can read your linked accounts in ordinary chats “without asking each time,” so a money question asked in a regular chat follows your privacy settings.

Some other things the help page says:

• Once Claude has used your accounts in a chat, “it’s designed not to save anything from that chat to memory or search that chat later,” and leaves it out of your monthly recap.
• A shared chat link shows “any figures from your accounts.” Claude asks before it publishes an artifact from such a chat, and the artifact “stays until you delete it, even if you delete the chat.”
• Balances “can be a day or two old,” and an account linked through two logins may be counted twice. Anthropic says to “check important figures with your bank.”

How to set it up, and how to stop

1. Open Claude on the web, Claude Desktop, or the mobile app, and open Personal Finance in the side menu (under More if you don’t see it).
2. Select Get started, choose your goals or skip them, and select Continue.
3. Select Link accounts with Plaid, review what Claude will access, and select Continue.
4. In Plaid, choose your bank, sign in, and pick the accounts to share. Finish within 10 minutes, then return to Claude.

To keep your accounts out of a chat, click + in the message box, then Connectors, and switch Plaid off. On iOS and Android you can also set it to Needs approval, so Claude asks before each read.

To stop, open Personal Finance, choose Manage linked accounts, and select Unlink on a bank or Unlink all banks. You can’t unlink a single account at a bank, only the whole login. Unlinking your last bank deletes your dashboard, “and this can’t be undone.” You can also disconnect Claude at my.plaid.com. If your paid plan ends, your banks stay linked until you unlink them, so unlink first if you’re not coming back.

Where it doesn’t work

The help page’s limits: “Claude can’t use your linked accounts in scheduled tasks, Cowork tasks, or Claude Code, and may not be able to use them in a project.” It isn’t in Claude Duet, and data exports don’t yet include your dashboard. Apps that run Claude Code, Enjoy included, can’t reach it either: it lives in Claude’s own apps.

How it compares with ChatGPT

OpenAI got there first. ChatGPT’s personal finance tool, also built on Plaid, opened to US Pro users in May and to Plus users by June 30, 2026, according to 9to5Mac. The features are much alike. The difference Engadget points to is training: OpenAI applies your existing data controls to ChatGPT’s tool, while Claude keeps Personal Finance hub chats out of training regardless.

What Anthropic hasn’t said

• When the rollout finishes. “This week” is the start; there’s no date for everyone.
• Other countries, and Free or Team plans. Anthropic hasn’t said whether or when they’ll get it.
• Advice. “We’re exploring how to make that possible in Claude,” Anthropic writes of working with “licensed professionals and regulated firms,” with no product or date.