Claude can now look at your bank accounts. Anthropic’s new Personal Finance beta, announced on 5 November 2026, links your US bank and card accounts through Plaid so you can ask plain-English questions about your money.
It is read-only, it has no ads, and hub chats are not used for training. It also has real catches: US only, paid plans only, a 16-bank cap and some sharing rules you should know before you link anything.
This guide covers who can get it, the exact setup steps on web, desktop and phone, what Claude can and cannot see, 20 prompts to try, privacy, how to unlink, fixes for common errors and how it compares with ChatGPT’s finance feature.
- What: a Personal Finance hub in Claude that reads your linked accounts and answers questions about spending, bills, fees and balances.
- Who: US users on Pro ($20), Max ($100) or Ultra ($200). Not Free, Team or Enterprise. Rolling out gradually.
- Where: web, Claude Desktop, iOS and Android. Open Personal Finance in the side menu (or under More).
- Access: read-only via Plaid. Claude never sees your bank password and cannot move, pay or invest money.
- Data: account names, last four digits, balances, credit limits and up to 24 months of transactions. No holdings, trades, rates or loan terms.
- Limits: up to 16 banks, US banks only, not in Claude Code, Cowork, scheduled tasks or Claude Duet.
- Privacy: hub chats are not used for training and are kept out of memory, but artifacts and shared links can still expose figures.
What Is Claude Personal Finance?
Personal Finance is a dedicated hub inside Claude. You connect bank and credit card accounts once, then ask questions like “Where did my money go this month?” and Claude answers from your real balances and transactions.
Anthropic announced it on 5 November 2026 as a beta that started rolling out that week. Plaid, the bank-connection company behind many budgeting apps, handles the links. Plaid’s CTO Will Robinson confirmed on the same day that Claude’s access is read-only.
What Claude does with that data, according to Anthropic:
- Totals and categories: adds up spending across all linked accounts and sorts it into groups like rent and utilities, food and drink, and shopping.
- Spot problems: flags charges that hit twice, surprise fees and bills that crept up over the year.
- Big-picture checks: answers “Am I spending more than I make?” or “What’s left before payday?”
- Explain terms: tells you what APR means and works out what your card’s interest cost you this year.
- Visuals: builds weekly spending charts, a calendar of upcoming bills or a custom dashboard.
In Anthropic’s own example, Claude totalled $4,309.37 of monthly spending, showed over half went to rent and utilities and $1,024.51 to food and drink, then listed four payments due before payday that would leave $1,393.22.
Who Can Use It: Plans, Countries and Devices
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Plans | Pro ($20/month, or $17/month billed yearly), Max ($100), Ultra ($200) |
| Not included | Free, Team and Enterprise plans |
| Country | US only, US banks only |
| Status | Beta, rolling out gradually from 5 Nov 2026 |
| Apps | claude.ai on the web, Claude Desktop (Mac and Windows), iOS, Android |
| Bank limit | Up to 16 banks, any number of accounts at each |
| History | Up to 24 months of transactions |
| Extra cost | None beyond your Claude plan |
Note: if you use a VPN that exits outside the US, the hub stays hidden until you connect from the US again. Your linked banks are kept while it is hidden.
Not sure which plan you are on, or whether Pro is enough? Our Claude plans and pricing guide breaks down Pro, Max and Ultra limits.
How to Set It Up, Step by Step
These steps follow Anthropic’s Help Center article. The whole thing takes a few minutes, but the Plaid part must be finished within 10 minutes.
- Open Personal Finance. In the Claude side menu, click Personal Finance. If you don’t see it, hover over More.
- Start. Select Get started, pick your goals (or skip), then select Continue.
- Review access. Select Link accounts with Plaid, read the list of what Claude can access, and select Continue.
- Sign in to your bank in Plaid. Choose your bank, log in on Plaid’s screen, and tick the accounts you want to share.
- Return to Claude. Go straight back and wait for the accounts to appear. New transactions can take a few minutes to sync.
- Add more or finish. Select Link another account for another bank, or Done.
- Ask one question. Anthropic’s own advice: start with a single question such as “Where did my money go this month?”
Where Plaid Opens on Each Device
- Web: in a new window.
- Claude Desktop: in your default browser, which must be signed in to the same Claude account.
- iOS: inside the app.
- Android: in a browser tab.
Tip: on Desktop and Android, finish in the browser tab Claude opened and do not reload Plaid’s page. Reloading is the most common reason a link fails.
Adding More Accounts Later
- Web and Desktop: click Link another account at the top of the Personal Finance page.
- iOS and Android: tap the gear icon at the top right, then Link another account.
- Another account at the same bank: link that bank again and share every account you want included, not just the new one.
If Claude says a bank is already linked, you get three choices:
| Option | What it does | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Switch to the new link | Replaces the old link; Claude reads only accounts shared this time | You forgot an account the first time |
| Keep it as it is | Leaves the old link alone | You clicked by mistake |
| Keep both | Adds a second login at the same bank | Joint or business login at the same bank |
What Claude Can and Cannot See
| Claude can read | Claude cannot read or do |
|---|---|
| Bank names | Your bank password (Plaid handles sign-in) |
| Account names, types and last four digits | Investment holdings or trades |
| Balances and credit limits | Interest rates or loan terms |
| Up to 24 months of transactions: amount, date, merchant, category, bank description | Move money, pay bills, trade or open products |
For investment, loan and card accounts, Claude sees only balances and limits, even if Plaid’s consent screen asks for more. So it can tell you your brokerage balance, but not which stocks you hold.
Warning: Plaid passes only the last four digits of account numbers, but some banks write a full account number into an account name or transaction description. If yours does, Claude can see it.
Balances can be a day or two old, so check anything important in your bank’s own app before acting on it.
20 Prompts to Try
The first eight come from Anthropic’s launch post. The rest are practical follow-ups built on the same documented abilities.
Spending
- “Where did my money go this month?”
- “Is that more than usual?”
- “Anything else I’m missing?”
- “Show my top 10 merchants for the last 3 months.”
- “How much did I spend on food delivery this year compared with last year?”
Bills and Fees
- “So what’s left before payday?”
- “Anything look off?” (Anthropic says this catches double charges, surprise fees and bills that grew)
- “List every subscription I pay for and when each renews.”
- “Which bills went up in the last 12 months, and by how much?”
- “Did I pay any overdraft, late or foreign transaction fees this year?”
Planning
- “Am I spending more than I make?”
- “Can I afford a trip this spring?”
- “How much could I save each month?”
- “If I cut takeaway by half, how much would I save in a year?”
- “Build me a simple monthly budget from my last 3 months.”
Learning and Checking
- “What’s an APR, and what has mine cost me this year?”
- “How much credit am I using across all my cards?”
- “Which accounts are behind this total?”
- “Show the transactions behind that number.”
- “Make a calendar of my upcoming bills.”
Tip: always follow a total with “Which accounts are behind this total?” It is the fastest way to catch double-counting (see Limits below).
Charts, Dashboards and Artifacts
Ask for a weekly spending chart, a bill calendar or a dashboard of the numbers you care about, and Claude builds it. You can keep asking for changes, such as a new category or a different date range.
The Help Center sets some rules for chats that read your accounts:
- Allowed: text, tables and plain text files such as CSV.
- Not allowed: running code or working with Office or PDF files in that chat.
- Publishing: Claude asks before publishing an artifact from a finance chat. A published artifact can contain bank figures and stays until you delete it, even after you delete the chat.
- Others opening it: an artifact can read the linked accounts of whoever opens it, if that person has Personal Finance and allows Plaid. Saved figures are visible to anyone with the link.
Privacy, Memory and Sharing Rules
| Question | Answer (per Anthropic) |
|---|---|
| Used to train models? | Not for chats in the Personal Finance hub. Outside the hub, your normal privacy settings apply. |
| Saved to memory? | Chats that use your accounts are designed not to be saved to memory or be searchable, and are left out of your monthly recap. |
| Ads or sponsored picks? | None. Anthropic sells no cards, loans or savings accounts. |
| How long is data kept? | Financial details stay in chat history until you delete the chat, subject to Anthropic’s retention practices. |
| Does Claude ask before reading? | By default it reads linked accounts without asking each time, but asks before linking or unlinking a bank in a chat. |
| Shared chat links | Show your messages and any account figures in them. |
| Who holds bank data? | Plaid, under its own terms and privacy policy. |
You can control whether ordinary chats may use Plaid. On web and Desktop click +, then Connectors, and toggle Plaid. On iOS and Android tap +, Connectors, Plaid, then choose Blocked, Always allow or Needs approval under “All tools”.
Tip: set Plaid to Needs approval if you share your screen a lot or let others use your laptop. For more on what Claude remembers, compare our ChatGPT memory guide, which covers the same questions for OpenAI.
How to Unlink a Bank or Turn It Off
- Open your linked accounts. Go to Personal Finance. On web and Desktop use the three-dot menu and choose Manage linked accounts; on mobile tap the gear icon.
- Pick the bank. Select it (tap it first on mobile), then choose Unlink and confirm.
- Or stop everything. Choose Unlink all banks to turn Personal Finance off entirely.
- Double-check at Plaid. Sign in at my.plaid.com, open Overview, select Claude, scroll to Manage connections and click Disconnect app.
- Clean up old chats. Delete finance chats, artifacts and shared links you no longer want. Unlinking does not remove figures Claude already wrote.
- One bank login = one unit: unlinking removes every account under that login. You cannot unlink a single account.
- Last bank resets everything: unlinking your last bank permanently resets your dashboard, widgets, budgets and setup answers.
- Plan ends: you lose access, but banks stay linked until you unlink them. Resubscribe and everything comes back.
- Moving to Team or Enterprise: Claude unlinks your banks when the move starts.
- Deleting your Claude account: banks are unlinked automatically once deletion is processed.
If your plan has already ended, unlink on the web under Customize (or Plugins), then Connectors, Plaid, Unlink. Plaid’s own help page notes that disconnecting stops future sharing only; an app may keep data it already collected until you ask it to delete it.
Claude vs ChatGPT Personal Finance
OpenAI got here first. ChatGPT’s finance preview launched on 15 May 2026 for Pro users and widened to some US Plus users from 30 June. Here is how the two compare on published facts.
| Feature | Claude Personal Finance | ChatGPT Finances |
|---|---|---|
| Launched | 5 Nov 2026 (beta) | 15 May 2026 (Pro preview); Plus from 30 Jun 2026 |
| Cheapest plan | Pro, $20/month | Plus, $20/month (rolling out to some users) |
| Country | US only | US only |
| Connector | Plaid | Plaid (Intuit support announced as “soon”) |
| Investments | Balance only, no holdings | Dashboard includes portfolio performance |
| History | Up to 24 months | Not stated in launch coverage |
| Where to find it | Side menu: Personal Finance | Sidebar: Finances, or type “@Finances, connect my accounts” |
| Disconnect | Personal Finance > Manage linked accounts | Settings > Apps > Finances; synced data removed 30 days later |
| Ads | None in Claude | ChatGPT now shows ads (per The Next Web) |
| Training | Hub chats excluded | Finance data kept separate from chats; memories deletable |
Which should you use? If you want investment performance in one place, ChatGPT’s dashboard covers more today. If you mostly want spending, bills and fee hunting with tight privacy defaults and no ads, Claude’s version is the cleaner pick, and you may already pay for it.
Limits and Catches
- US only: no UK, EU, India or Canada support has been announced.
- Not everywhere in Claude: it does not work in scheduled tasks, Cowork tasks, Claude Code or Claude Duet, and may not work inside projects.
- Some chats lose access: chats that ran code, created files or started from an artifact cannot read your accounts.
- Exports: Claude data exports do not yet include your Personal Finance dashboard.
- Accuracy: Anthropic warns Claude can make mistakes. Ask which transactions support a figure and check with your bank.
The Double-Counting Trap
If you link a personal login and a joint or business login at the same bank with Keep both, an account that appears under both logins with different labels can be counted twice. Anthropic’s Help Center warns about this directly.
One write-up gives a clear example: $8,000 personal plus $22,000 business could show as $52,000 instead of $30,000. Before you act on any total, ask “Which accounts are behind this total?”
Warning: a business account linked here sits in your personal Claude plan, not a Team or Enterprise workspace, so company admin controls do not apply. For company money, keep using proper bookkeeping tools.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| No Personal Finance in the menu | Check you are on Pro, Max or Ultra with a personal (not Team/Enterprise) account, update the app, turn off any non-US VPN, and look under More. Rollout is gradual, so it may not be on your account yet. |
| “Nothing new was linked” or “already linked” | Relink the bank and share every account you want included. |
| Link fails on Desktop or Android | Finish in the browser Claude opened and do not reload Plaid’s page. |
| Linked bank not showing | Wait a minute or two and reopen Personal Finance. Still missing? Relink, finish within 10 minutes and don’t close Plaid yourself. |
| Missing transactions | Wait for the sync. If the bank asks, choose Sign in again. Nothing after a day? Relink. |
| “Claude can’t read this bank” | Don’t unlink first. Use Link another account and choose Switch to the new link (or Keep both), then unlink the old entry if it remains. |
| “Sign-in expired” | Open linked accounts and select Sign in again on that bank with the same login. |
| Already at 16 banks | Unlink one before adding another. |
| Chat ignores your accounts | Check Plaid is on under + > Connectors, start a new chat outside a project, and avoid chats that ran code or made files. Try claude.ai in a browser if the app still fails. |
Still stuck? On the web, click your name or initials in the lower left, then Get help. Never share your bank login or full account numbers with anyone, Support included.
My Take
This is a smart, careful first step. Read-only access, no ads, no in-house financial products and a training opt-out for hub chats remove most of the obvious worries about letting an AI near your bank data.
The weak spots are the edges. Artifacts that keep figures after you unlink, shared links that show balances, and the Keep both double-count are easy to trip over. I would keep Plaid on Needs approval for normal chats and never publish a finance artifact.
The bigger story is the race: OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity now all want to be your always-on assistant, and money is the stickiest data there is.
My guess is that investment holdings, more countries and adviser tie-ins come next. Anthropic already says it is exploring work with licensed professionals and regulated firms. We are tracking the same shift in Claude’s enterprise security controls and Claude’s text watermark.
FAQ
Is Claude Personal Finance free?
No. It needs a Pro ($20/month), Max ($100) or Ultra ($200) plan in the US. There is no extra charge on top of the plan.
Can Claude move money or pay my bills?
No. Access is read-only. Anthropic says Personal Finance cannot move, manage or invest money.
Does Claude see my bank password?
No. You sign in to your bank inside Plaid, and Plaid passes Claude only the read-only data you approve.
Will Anthropic train Claude on my transactions?
Not for chats in the Personal Finance hub. Finance details you paste into ordinary chats follow your normal privacy settings.
Can I use it outside the US?
Not yet. It is US-only with US banks, and the hub hides itself if you connect through a non-US VPN.
How many banks can I link?
Up to 16 banks, with as many accounts at each bank as you choose to share.
Can Claude see my stocks and investments?
Only the balance. It cannot see holdings, trades, interest rates or loan terms.
What happens to my data if I cancel my plan?
You lose access, but banks stay linked until you unlink them. Unlink in Personal Finance or at my.plaid.com, then delete old finance chats and artifacts.
Sources
- Anthropic: “Introducing Personal Finance in Claude” (claude.com, 5 Nov 2026)
- Anthropic Help Center: “Use Personal Finance in Claude” (support.claude.com)
- Plaid blog: “Plaid powers financial insights in Claude” by Will Robinson (5 Nov 2026)
- Plaid Portal help: “How do I disconnect my financial accounts from an app?”
- TechCrunch: “Claude can now analyze your spending with its new Personal Finance tool” (5 Nov 2026)
- The Next Web: “Anthropic lets Claude read your bank accounts, but not move money”
- Yahoo Finance: “Anthropic’s Claude Can Now Read Your Bank Accounts”
- TechCrunch: “OpenAI launches ChatGPT for personal finance” (15 May 2026)
- Dataconomy: ChatGPT personal finance tools reach Plus users (1 Jul 2026)
- Justin McKelvey: “Claude Personal Finance: What It Reads, and the Business-Account Catch”