Anthropic lets Claude read bank accounts in the US

Anthropic started a beta test of Personal Finance in Claude this week. Users connect bank and card accounts through Plaid, a tool that connects apps to banks. Claude then shows where the money went. The access is read only. It is for Claude Pro, Max and Ultra subscribers in the US. Anthropic tells that Claude cannot move money.

How it works

Claude sees the bank name, the account names and type, the last four digits, balances, and credit limits. It also sees the last two years of transactions. It does not see bank passwords.

A user can write to Claude about spending by category, or about bills before payday.

The numbers

Anthropic gave no test results. Chats in the Personal Finance hub are not used to train models. External chats follow only your Claude privacy settings.

OpenAI added an equivalent tool to ChatGPT in May. Some Reddit users report that it is accurate. They report that it is not as good as Mint or Monarch in history sync and dashboards.

What is not known

Anthropic did not tell how frequently Claude gives incorrect answers. It did not tell if the dashboards stay or if the user must make them again. The tool is not made to give investment advice.

Insight: Claude is becoming a front door to private data

Claude reads bank data through Plaid. On 2 November, Athenahealth, a US health provider, let patients connect Claude to health records. Anthropic also wants banks and wealth managers to help with the next step. This reads as a move to be the one chat screen for personal data. The data holders keep the gate. Monitor which banks agree.