Meet the AI friend you can chat to about your finances.
Cleo offers intelligent insights into your spending patterns, trends and budgets — all via Facebook Messenger or the Cleo app.
What is Cleo?
Cleo is an AI program that helps you keep track of your money by analyzing transaction data on your bank account.
It’s creators strongly believe in the power of new technologies to help us manage finances better. Since its launch in 2016 Cleo has grown exponentially, currently helping 400,000+ US users have a clearer and more positive relationship with their budgeting.
How does Cleo work?
By providing Cleo with your online banking login, it’s able to securely analyze your transaction data. It uses the information to chat with you on Facebook Messenger or in the app, where you can ask it to:
- Set and keep track of daily, weekly or monthly budgets.
- Check your direct debits.
- View your balance.
- Check latest transactions
- View your spending habits split up into categories.
Is Cleo safe?
Cleo gains read-only access to your account, meaning it can only view encrypted transactions — it can’t move money into or out of your account.
Your credentials will never be stored on Cleo’s servers, and the company uses bank-level bank-level encryption to keep your data safe.
Cleo is so confident in your safety that they pledge to cover you up to $250,000 for any security breaches.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Sign up in less than two minutes.
- Easy to use — contact Cleo from the Messenger app at any time.
- Intelligent insights into your budget and spending.
- Great for those who aren’t particularly engaged with their money.
Cons
- Cleo may not be useful for people who are already in the habit of saving.
- Requires you to give access to your bank logins to a third party.
Case study: Dawn’s experience
Dawn Daniels
Associate Editor
It’s also not great at categorizing expenses — it’s marked a money order as “eating out” a few times now. Overall, it keeps me up-to-date on my account balance, which is nice, but the features aren’t as advanced as I’d hoped.
Compare checking accounts to connect to Cleo
The future of Cleo
Cleo was started in London, and is still growing here in the US. In the future, the company has plans to let you send money to friends, make investments, get overdraft coverage and keep track of your credit score.
Bottom line
If you have trouble staying on top of your finances, Cleo can help. It’ll let you know if you’re sticking to your budget, have upcoming bills or can afford to go out to eat tonight. But if you’re already a pro budgeter or don’t like the idea of giving up your bank logins, this financial solution might not be a fit.
