Connect Your Bank Through Finances via Plaid

You can connect your bank accounts to your muse through Finances via Plaid, so it can read your real spending, list your subscriptions, flag charges that look wrong, and build a money plan from your numbers instead of guesses.

What it does

Connected through Plaid, the service many money apps use to link to banks, your muse reads your transactions directly. Ask for the last 30 days by category and you get totals for food, transport, subscriptions, and the rest. Ask for every subscription and it lists what each costs and when it last charged, including small ones that are easy to forget. Ask it to check for problems and it flags duplicate charges, sudden price rises, and charges from names you do not recognize. Give it one goal, such as finding savings this month, and it builds the plan around your real spending. It is normal if connecting a bank to an agent sounds like a big step. Nothing is spent, moved, or canceled without your approval.

How to use it

1. Before you connect anything, open your muse settings and set approvals so spending, buying, and moving money always wait for your tap.
2. Go to Settings, then Connectors, and find Finances via Plaid.
3. Connect through the Plaid screen. Choose your bank and sign in there. Never type a bank password or card number into the chat.
4. Ask which accounts it can see, and check the answer against your own records.
5. Start read-only: "Summarize my spending from the last 30 days by category."
6. Read that summary against your bank statement. If they match, ask for the subscription list and the duplicate charge check.
7. Keep it read-only for the first week. Approve actions one at a time after that.

What you need

• A muse account
• A bank account that Plaid supports
• One money goal in a single sentence

What to watch for

• Plaid does not support every bank. If yours is missing, the connector cannot see it, and there is no workaround inside your muse.
• A summary can misread a charge or miss a subscription. Check any number you plan to act on against your statement first.
• If a charge looks like fraud, call your bank directly. Your muse can spot the pattern, but only your bank can stop the charge.
• Turn on bank alerts for charges and logins, and only connect through the muse app, never through a link sent by email or message. You can disconnect the bank at any time in settings. The muse prepares, you decide.