The choice for regulated finance
Claude for Financial Services is a strong, purpose-built product. It is also a cloud service on a single model family, where your data is processed in the vendor's environment under enterprise terms.
For a lot of work that is acceptable. If you're considering an alternative, it's usually because SEC, FINRA, SOX, or model-risk rules make "our data is processed by a third party" a harder answer than "our data never left our servers."
This is a factual comparison, not a criticism of Claude.
The differences that matter
| Claude for Financial Services | ibl.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Vendor cloud | Your servers — on-prem or air-gapped |
| Client/trading data | Processed by the vendor | Never leaves your infrastructure |
| Model | Claude family | Model-agnostic, including open-weight |
| Pricing | Per seat | Flat-rate, unlimited users |
| Code & audit | Closed SaaS | Full source code, your own audit trail |
Why deployment beats assurance here
A vendor can sign strong terms and promise not to train on your data. An air-gapped deployment makes the promise unnecessary, because there is nowhere for client data or trading intelligence to go.
For SR 11-7 model risk, SEC, and FINRA exams, "show that you control the system, the data, and the decisions" is the recurring ask — and an owned, fully-logged deployment is the cleanest way to say yes.
What firms run
A KYC/AML agent for verification and sanctions screening, a compliance agent for SEC/FINRA monitoring, a risk agent for portfolio analysis — all where the data stays on your servers.
This is the model behind self-hosted AI for financial services: agents built on the Agentic OS, air-gapped, model-agnostic, with a complete audit trail. ibl.ai runs in production across 400+ organizations and 1.6M+ users.
The honest tradeoff
If your use is light and low-sensitivity, a hosted plan is faster to start. If you're under examination pressure or deploying firm-wide, owning the deployment wins on both control and long-run cost.
Where to start
Pick one workflow where the audit trail matters — KYC screening or compliance monitoring — and run it air-gapped against one desk or division. Prove the controls on real cases before expanding.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Claude for Financial Services alternative?
An owned, self-hosted platform where client data stays on the institution's own servers — versus Claude for Financial Services, a capable managed cloud product. ibl.ai runs any model inside your SOC 2 / GLBA-aligned boundary.
Does client data stay on our servers?
Yes. The runtime, the data, and the agents run inside your VPC, on-premise, or air-gapped environment, so no client record leaves your perimeter.
Can you run Claude and other models?
Yes, it is model-agnostic — run Claude, GPT, Gemini, or self-hosted open-weight models behind your own boundary and switch anytime.
Can it run air-gapped for sensitive workloads?
Yes. For the most sensitive financial workloads the stack runs fully air-gapped inside the institution.