Unlock the statement

This is where most people quietly give up. They export a statement, try to upload it, get an error nobody explains, and decide this approach does not work for their bank. It does. There is one specific wall, and three minutes gets you past it.

Upload, do not photograph

A free account takes PDF, CSV and XLSX among other formats, up to 500 MB per file and 20 files in one chat, and a PDF of 0 to 100 pages gets full visual analysis rather than plain text extraction. That matters for statements, because banks often draw parts of a page as graphics that a text-only reader silently drops. If your bank offers CSV or XLSX, take it: no password, no layout to misread.

The wall: uploads need an unencrypted PDF

Claude only opens a standard PDF, no password and no encryption. Indian and Brazilian bank and card statements are routinely delivered password protected, which stops a lot of readers on their first attempt. Step one is finding the password:

• HDFC opens with your Customer ID, not your date of birth. This catches nearly everyone, because every other document in your life uses the date.
• ICICI uses the first four letters of your name plus DDMM of your date of birth.
• SBI is genuinely inconsistent across sources. Try each pattern you have and expect the first to fail.
• Indian tax documents have their own rule: AIS and TIS PDFs open with your PAN in lowercase followed by DDMMYYYY.

For Türkiye, be warned that no Turkish bank publicly documents a password rule. If your statement arrived locked, the email that delivered it usually states the pattern, and the bank app will often let you download the same statement unlocked. Do not sit there guessing.

Then re-save it without one

Knowing the password does not help the upload. You need a copy that does not need one.

1. Open the PDF and enter the password.
2. Use Print, then choose Save as PDF (on a phone this sits in the print preview, sometimes behind the share icon).
3. Save under a new name, close it, open the new file.
4. If it opens without asking for anything, it is ready.

The step that catches people is using "save a copy" or "share" instead of print. Those often carry the protection with them; printing rebuilds the file.

First contact prompt

Upload the unlocked file into an Incognito chat. Before anything clever, find out what Claude can actually read.

I have uploaded a bank statement. Do not analyse it yet. Tell me only what you can actually read:
 
1. How many pages you can see.
2. The date range covered, quoted from the document.
3. How many transaction lines you count.
4. The first transaction line and the last transaction line, quoted exactly as they appear.
5. Any line, column or page you cannot read clearly. Quote what you can see of it and say what is unclear.
 
Rules: use only what is in the file. Do not guess at anything blurred, cut off or missing, and never fill in a number that is not printed. If a column header is unclear, say so rather than assuming what it means. Reply in the language I wrote this in.

Next: one month in, plain categories out.