Anthropic tests a Claude that answers questions about account and card spending

On November 5, 2026, Anthropic announced Personal Finance, a beta for Claude that connects authorized bank accounts and credit cards. The assistant answers questions about spending in plain language, based on balances and purchases. The company said it would start rolling out the beta that week, in the United States, to Pro, Max and Ultra subscribers.

How the connection works

Access is set up through Plaid, a service that connects apps to banks. The person logs into the account through the bank's authentication flow and chooses which accounts to share. According to Anthropic, under the conditions described for the beta, Claude neither asks for nor sees the bank password. In authorized accounts, the assistant can access the bank's name, the account type and last four digits, balances, credit limits and up to two years of transactions. An account can be disconnected at any time.

Two years of history can give the answers context, but they also widen the amount of personal information shared.

With this data, the user can ask for a chart of the week's spending, a bill calendar or an explanation of their transactions. The feature brings together information that usually shows up on different screens and lets you look it up with questions in everyday language.

Read access has limits

Anthropic says access is read-only: the assistant doesn't make transfers, doesn't manage accounts and doesn't make investments. The company says conversations inside the Personal Finance space are not used to train its models; conversations outside it follow the account's privacy settings. Anthropic also warns that the assistant can make mistakes and that the feature was not built to give investment advice.

This calls for separating access to information from authorization to act. Restricted read access prevents transactions through the assistant, but it doesn't eliminate the sharing of financial data. Before connecting an account, it's worth checking which data will be shared and what history will be available. For important amounts, Anthropic recommends checking the transactions with the bank.

Sources

Anthropic, 5 Nov 2026. https://claude.com/resources/articles/introducing-personal-finance-in-claude