The News, Explained
On November 5, Anthropic announced Personal Finance in Claude, a beta rolling out to Pro, Max and Ultra subscribers in the US. It works on the web, in the desktop app and on iOS and Android. Users can ask questions about balances and spending across accounts on one screen. The feature can read account data; it cannot move or invest money. Source Source
Users sign in to their bank and choose which accounts to share through Plaid, a service that connects banks and apps. Claude does not receive the bank password. It can read the linked accounts’ names, types, last digits, balances and credit limits, as well as up to 24 months of transactions. Individual investment holdings and loan terms are outside that scope. Source Source
Claude’s totals can differ from a bank app. Its help center says balances may be a day or two old, and spending figures leave out banks Claude cannot read. If the link for a card you regularly use has stopped working, for example, that card’s purchases can drop out of the total and make the remaining budget look bigger than it is. Source
Anthropic says it does not train models on conversations inside the Personal Finance hub. What you share outside the hub follows your privacy settings. Claude can also read linked accounts in regular chats without asking each time, unless you change the Plaid connector setting in the chat. Unlinking a bank stops new reads for all accounts shared through that login. Disconnecting in Plaid also stops future sharing. Earlier answers can remain in chats, generated outputs and shared links, which you can remove separately. Unlinking the last bank also resets the dashboard’s widgets, settings and setup answers. Source Source Source
OYOPICK’s Take
Asking about spending across banks in one place can save time hunting for transactions. When a connection drops, it is more useful to see which banks were counted and how old their balances are than to get a plausible total on its own. The unlink screen could offer the same clarity: showing which data will stop coming in and which records remain would help users decide what else to remove. Source Source