Plaid Launches Consumer Reporting Agency to Leverage Cash Flow Data for Credit Risk Insights

Plaid Launches Consumer Reporting Agency to Leverage Cash Flow Data for Credit Risk Insights
  • Open banking innovator Plaid announced a new initiative to enable lenders to leverage consumer-permissioned cash flow data on prospective borrowers.
  • The new entity will serve as a consumer reporting agency that will build solutions that deliver ready-made credit risk insights using this information.
  • Founded in 2013, Plaid made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVr, in 2014.

Is cash flow data the missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to completing the picture of a person’s creditworthiness? A new initiative from open banking innovator Plaid suggests that the answer is “yes.”

“Lenders and consumers alike know that traditional credit scores don’t tell the full story of someone’s financial life,” Plaid Head of Credit Mike Saunders noted at the Plaid blog on Monday. “Information on savings, income, or on-time rent payments is often left out of the picture, even though this data is critical to understanding someone’s ability to pay back a loan.”

The new entity, announced by Plaid today, will create solutions for customers who want to leverage consumer-permissioned cash flow data to access ready-made credit risk insights. It will serve as a consumer reporting agency, according to Saunders, that will help Plaid’s customers make smarter decisions on risk throughout the lending process.

Plaid is joining a growing cohort of fintechs that have determined that while there remains a place for traditional credit scores, there is much that these scores leave out. This undermines the ability of lenders to serve otherwise qualified borrowers. It also creates hurdles for potential customers – from the “thin-file” recently-arrived immigrant professional to the young adult struggling to rebuild their credit. “Putting cash flow insights to work unlocks opportunities for lenders to grow their business while managing risk,” Saunders wrote. “This fosters inclusion, expands credit access, and serves a broader set of consumer needs.”

The new initiative is still being fleshed out. But Plaid is confident that it can make a significant difference with cash flow data in two specific ways: availability and usability. With regard to making consumer-permissioned cash flow data available, Saunders pointed to Plaid’s existing relationships with lenders and property management companies like Mission Lane and Funnel, respectively. These firms have leveraged Plaid’s technology to source clean income and assets data on prospective borrowers.

Usability, the ability of businesses to integrate data into their decision models, is the second component. And this is where the new entity in particular comes in, building solutions that enable lenders to leverage cash flow data for credit risk insights. “Many lenders simply don’t have the time, money, or technical resources to develop insights on top of this detailed, transaction-level data by themselves,” Saunders wrote.

The company admits that it is still “in the early innings” of what Saunders called “the future of cash flow underwriting.” To this end, Plaid presently is offering its new cash flow insights as part of a limited release via the consumer reporting company.

News of Plaid’s new entity comes just days after the company reported that it was working with European payments company Adyen. The partnership will enable Adyen to introduce its pay-by-bank offering in North America by early next year. Last month, Plaid announced partnerships with cryptocurrency infrastructure platform Zero Hash and fraud and risk intelligence specialist Riskified. Plaid also introduced its first Chief Financial Officer last month: former Expedia CFO and Chief Strategy Officer Eric Hart.


Photo by Pixabay

Fiserv Offers More Than 3,000 Institutions Access to Plaid’s Network

Fiserv Offers More Than 3,000 Institutions Access to Plaid’s Network
  • Fiserv has partnered with Plaid to offer its bank clients API-based connectivity to third-party applications on Plaid’s network.
  • The agreement leverages Fiserv’s AllData Connect to allow credential-free data sharing.
  • Fiserv has signed a similar consumer-permissioned data sharing agreements with Akoya, MX, and Finicity.

Digital banking and payments solutions company Fiserv has partnered with financial infrastructure fintech Plaid this week. The two have formed a data-sharing agreement that will offer Fiserv’s 3,000 bank and credit union clients API-based connectivity to the 8,000+ applications on Plaid’s network.

The data-sharing agreement, which will leverage Fiserv’s AllData Connect, will ultimately benefit the end consumer. The deal will help consumers who bank with Fiserv clients share their financial information with third-party financial apps and services such as Venmo, Chime, SoFi, and Betterment.

“Our partnership with Plaid allows banks and credit unions to empower consumers to access their financial information beyond the financial institution, while maintaining their trusted role at the center of people’s financial lives,” said Fiserv President of Digital Payments Matt Wilcox. “By facilitating access to a broad range of capabilities and experiences through third-party apps and services we are charting a course towards an open finance ecosystem that prioritizes data privacy, consumer access, and choice.”

Data sharing via API connectivity instead of an alternative such as screen-scraping offers end users a more seamless way to integrate their financial data into third-party platforms. The API connection also provides consumers more security than screen-scraping, a process that requires them to share their bank login credentials with a third party, which may not have the same level of security as a bank. The data sharing will be secure, transparent, and compliant with the anticipated regulatory guidance outlined by Dodd Frank 1033.

FDX Managing Director Don Cardinal called the relationship between Fiserv and Plaid “a leap forward for direct data sharing and great news for the ecosystem.”

Fiserv’s AllData Connect launched in 2020 and is part of the company’s AllData Aggregation product suite, a set of tools that enables credential-free data sharing. AllData Connect validates the consumer with their respective financial institution and issues a token employed by third parties to access and update that consumer’s data via the AllData Connect platform.

Fiserv signed a similar consumer-permissioned data agreement with Akoya in August and has also partnered with MX and Finicity for data sharing.

Fiserv was founded in 1984 and offers solutions that are used in nearly six million merchant locations and almost 10,000 financial institution clients. The company powers 12,000 financial transactions each second. Fiserv is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker FI and has a market capitalization of $68.8 billion.

Plaid helps 12,000+ financial institutions offer their customers access to its network of 8,000+ third party financial services via a suite of APIs that connects consumers, financial institutions, and developers. The company also offers identity verification, balance checks, risk assessment scoring, transaction analytics, and more. Plaid was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.


Photo by Lukas

Women’s Mentorship Platform Penny Finance Partners With Plaid to Offer Automated Money Insights

Women’s Mentorship Platform Penny Finance Partners With Plaid to Offer Automated Money Insights
  • Financial mentorship platform for women, Penny Finance, has launched a new automated account integration.
  • The new offering comes courtesy of a partnership with financial data connectivity innovator Plaid.
  • Wall Street veteran Crissi Cole founded Penny Finance in 2020.

Penny Finance has added a new feature courtesy of the company’s partnership with Plaid. The financial mentorship platform for women announced the launch of a new automated account integration that will power enhanced money insights for its members. After linking their bank accounts to the Penny Finance platform, members will receive personalized, financial wellness reminders via email. Members will also get a customized version of Penny Finance’s education and mentorship guidance. This includes everything from helping members understand the differences between their various accounts, to strategies to maximize their financial opportunities. An example of the latter could be a suggestion to transition from a standard savings account to a high yield savings account.

“Managing your finances should be easy. You shouldn’t have to dig through statements, read a finance book, or ask your dad how to manage your money,” Penny Finance CEO and founder Crissi Cole said. “We are so excited to take the guesswork out of managing your money for the most high-potential group of investors out there: women.”

Cole founded Penny Finance in 2020. The company is the first personalized, tech-powered financial mentorship platform to offer real-world advice to women who lack access to a financial advisor. Earlier this year, the company earned a spot in the 2023 Techstars Future of Longevity startup accelerator in partnership with Pivotal Ventures. Penny Finance is among ten startups participating in the program.

Penny Finance began the year with the launch of an all-in-one community feature. The offering provides a welcoming space for women to come together and share advice on a variety of financial wellness topics. The Penny Finance team moderates the new feature, which hosts questions on everything from debt management to investing.

“Women are whip-smart,” Cole said when the community feature was introduced in January. “We are more educated, live longer, and yet, we typically retire with one-third of the wealth of a man. Why? The system wasn’t built for us. The world of finance is a ‘boys club’ with its own rules. But, the good news is, it’s not as complicated as they made it out to be.”

Plaid has been a Finovate alum for nearly a decade. The company introduced itself to Finovate audiences as part of our developers conference, FinDEVr SiliconValley, in 2014. In the years since, the financial data connectivity innovator has grown into a leading fintech that powers more than 7,000 apps and services with its API-first network. The company also facilitates connections to more than 12,000 financial institutions. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Plaid was founded in 2013. Zach Perret is CEO.


Photo by Christina Morillo

Plaid Unveils New Identity Verification Experience

Plaid Unveils New Identity Verification Experience
  • Plaid released updates to its digital identity verification tool it launched last fall.
  • The update taps into the scale of the Plaid network to offer faster identity verification and a deeper risk insights.
  • Plaid’s overhaul also expands the types of identity documents it accepts, adds front-end support for more languages, provides a fake ID risk score, and improves the document capture experience.

Financial infrastructure fintech Plaid is updating a feature it launched last year that tackles one of the most pressing topics in fintech– digital identity.

At launch, Plaid’s identity verification tool offered consumers a one-click identity verification product that standardized a “verify once, verify everywhere” approach. As a result, users could authenticate themselves faster and with less friction, and organizations could remain KYC compliant.

And on the business side, these efficiencies are paying off. Companies using Plaid’s identity verification are reporting an average of 50% improvement of identity verification success rates.

Today’s update makes a handful of improvements on the current offering.

First, the upgrade enables Plaid Identity Verification customers to benefit from the scale of Plaid’s network. By leveraging its network, Plaid is able to offer faster verification experiences for end users while providing the organization with a more complete view of a user’s risk via their identity, financial account, and transactions.

“Now, when a user verifies their identity and links their accounts with Plaid, we detect if your customer is linking a bank account that belongs to them,” the company explained in a blog post. “We match onboarding data from identity verification with the financial institution information on file for an added layer of security.”

Next, Plaid has added a new score that indicates the likelihood that an identity has been stolen, fabricated, or manipulated. The company has also expanded the ID document types it accepts to include green cards and temporary ID cards like B1/B2 visas, and now supports front-end support for more languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and French. In addition, Plaid has improved its document capture experience to increase conversion by guiding the user’s capture window, optimizing image file sizes, and supporting more devices.

Plaid’s identity verification service is crucial for financial services firms and third-party providers. While these entities excel in their respective subsectors, they may lack a seamless identity verification solution. However, such a solution is essential not only for creating a pleasant user experience but also for meeting regulatory KYC requirements. Plaid’s service acts as a lifeline, bridging this gap and providing the necessary identity verification capabilities.

With $734 million in funding, Plaid helps 12,000+ financial institutions offer their customers access to its network of 7,000 third party financial services via a suite of APIs that connects consumers, financial institutions, and developers. The company also offers a suite of analytics products that provides further insights into transactions. Plaid was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.


Small Move, Big Impact: Plaid’s API Migration Paves the Way for U.S. Open Banking Revolution

Small Move, Big Impact: Plaid’s API Migration Paves the Way for U.S. Open Banking Revolution

Financial infrastructure company Plaid made a relatively quiet announcement last week that will have a big impact on open banking in the U.S. The California-based company unveiled that it has migrated 100% of its traffic to APIs for major financial institutions, including Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, USAA, Wells Fargo, and others.

Taken at face value, this announcement appears to be nothing more than a fintech adding new bank clients. Looking deeper, however, there are three significant aspects of Plaid migrating its traffic to the banks’ APIs.

First, today’s move shows banks’ shifts in attitude toward open banking. Because the U.S. does not have regulation surrounding open banking, many U.S. banks don’t have the motivation to make consumers’ financial data open to third parties or don’t want to deal with the security implications that opening up consumers’ data to third parties may have. Additionally, in some cases, the banks do not want to make consumers’ data available to third party applications because the banks believe that they own the consumers’ data– or at least believe that they own the customer relationship.

The second significant impact of Plaid’s recent move is that it means that third party apps won’t need to rely on screen scraping to retrieve consumers’ data. The practice of screen scraping in financial services is less than ideal for multiple reasons, including:

  1. It requires consumers to share their bank login credentials with a third party, which may not have the same level of security as a bank.
  2. Since screen scraping extracts data based on the visual elements of a website, if the bank redesigns its website or changes the layout, it can result in inaccurate data retrieval.
  3. Screen scraping simulates user actions and requires a response from the bank’s website, which may slow the performance of the bank’s website, especially if multiple apps are screen scraping at once.
  4. Because screen scraping is essentially unauthorized access to a bank’s systems, the act of doing so may violate a bank’s terms of service.

As for the third impact– now that Plaid is working with the four aforementioned major U.S. banks to migrate traffic to APIs, it sends a signal to smaller banks, credit unions, and community financial institutions, which are more likely to follow suit. Potentially expediting the need for other financial institutions to jump on board, Plaid has also signed agreements with RBC, Citibank, and M&T, which will be migrating Plaid’s traffic to their APIs in the coming months.

“Our goal is to remove the need to rely on screen scraping in order for consumers to use the apps and services they want, and the momentum across our API integrations will help the industry get there faster,” Plaid Head of U.S. Financial Institution Partnerships Christy Sunquist said in a company blog post.

Despite the significance of this month’s announcement, there is still much work to be done. Some U.S. banks, such as PNC, are notorious for their unwillingness to work with Plaid, in essence taking a “closed banking” approach. Such attitudes may not prove beneficial in the long run, however, as many of the bank’s customers feel they are being shut out from essential third-party financial tools.


Photo by Jamar Penny on Unsplash

Plaid Partners with Gen Z Personal Finance App Buddy

Plaid Partners with Gen Z Personal Finance App Buddy

Gen Z-focused personal finance app Buddy has teamed up with open finance specialist Plaid. The partnership will enable Buddy users to manage their finances and track their spending more easily thanks to Plaid’s open finance APIs. Plaid’s APIs ensure secure connections between users’ financial accounts and financials apps. The integration will allow users to easily monitor accounts and expenses in a single location, as well automate their savings.

“By using apps like Buddy, younger generations can gain better control over their finances and make more informed decisions, helping them to develop healthy habits that will serve them well in the future,” Buddy founder and CEO Olle Lind said. “By teaming up with Plaid, we are making this process quicker and more painless than ever before, helping millions across the world budget and plan for the future they want and deserve.”

Buddy is among the top personal finance apps in the U.S. and Canada. The app has three million users and operates in 175 countries. The Stockholm, Sweden-based company was founded in 2017.

Plaid’s partnership announcement with Buddy came just days after Plaid reported that it was working with fellow Finovate alum Finastra. The two companies announced that Plaid had integrated with Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. The integration will provide account verification tools to make it easier and more secure for customers to link their financial accounts to financial apps.

“As the world continues to embrace open finance, it is critical that we deliver the services community banks, credit unions, and all financial institutions need to make it simpler and easier for their customers to connect the various pieces of their financial picture,” Finastra Chief Product Officer of Universal Banking Narenda Mistry said.

April has been a busy time for Plaid. The company launched its Instant Payouts feature earlier in the month. The new offering is a real-time payment tool to send funds instantly via Plaid’s Transfer solution. In April, the company also announced a partnership with mobile banking app Monzo.

Plaid has been a Finovate alum since 2014. The company’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe. Plaid has raised more than $734 million in funding from investors including American Express Ventures and Bedrock Capital. The company achieved a valuation of $13.4 billion in the spring of 2021. Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey, Plaid is based in San Francisco, California.


Photo by Scott Webb

Plaid Adds Enhanced Anti-Fraud Engine to its Identity Verification Solution

Plaid Adds Enhanced Anti-Fraud Engine to its Identity Verification Solution
  • Plaid added a new anti-fraud engine to its Plaid Identity Verification (IDV) solution.
  • The addition leverages autofill to accelerate sign up and help reduce manual errors. The technology also assesses device behavior and the way users input their personally identifiable information (PII).
  • Plaid announcement comes in the wake of news that the company is expanding in Europe.

Open banking innovator Plaid has added a new anti-fraud engine to its identity verification solution, Plaid Identity Verification (IDV). The anti-fraud engine supports a faster verification process to boost both conversions and signups. The new addition also assesses behavioral risk to better defend against emerging threats and strategies from fraudster and financial criminals.

The new tool comes months after Plaid launched its identity verification solution, and is the product of Plaid’s work with “hundreds of digital finance companies” in industries ranging from crypto and neo-lending to proptech and banking. Not only did Plaid’s work with these firms underscore fraud as a “top challenge.” it also highlighted two chief values that companies have when it comes to improving security and anti-fraud protection: a fast and secure onboarding process and a fraud defense regime that is capable of evolving to meet new threats.

To enhance the onboarding process, Plaid’s new tool offers an autofill experience that makes sign up seamless without compromising security. Customers in the U.S. only need to enter their date of birth and phone number when signing up, and Plaid’s autofill technology auto-populates with full name, address, and social security number and other information associated with the user’s phone number and birthdate. The autofill feature accelerates the verification time for customers from 30 seconds to as little as 10 seconds. Plaid also noted that its autofill feature can improve conversion by up to 20%.

The new anti-fraud engine also assesses device behavior and the way users enter their personally identifiable information (PII) to detect a range of behaviors that are associated with fraudulent actors and bots. The tool analyzes the speed and pace with which PII is entered, the order in which data is imputed, whether the data input method is copy and paste, and more. By monitoring these behaviors during the sign up process, Plaid’s new anti-fraud enhancements will help users of Plaid Identity Verification accurately verify customer identity, reduce fraud incidents, and meet compliance obligations.

Plaid’s announcement comes in the wake of big expansion and partnership news for the company. In August, Plaid reported that it will be expanding its operations in Europe. The company now offers its open banking capabilities in both Spain and Portugal, and provides clients in Germany with data connectivity services. The move comes with the addition of a pair of new Payment Service Provider (PSP) partners: Norbr and GlobePay. Plaid anticipates launching operations in other European countries soon, including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Also in August, Plaid announced a partnership with fellow Finovate alum Wise (formerly Transferwise). The deal will enable Wise customers to access to more than 6,000 apps courtesy of Plaid’s open finance core exchange, launched earlier this year. Venmo, Chime, and Truebill are among the apps that Wise customers will be able to select and add to their digital platforms.


Photo by A B

Plaid Teams Up with Truework to Launch Income Verification Solution

Plaid Teams Up with Truework to Launch Income Verification Solution
  • Plaid teamed up with Truework to launch a new income verification solution, Plaid Income.
  • The new offering will make it easier for loan applicants to share income and employment information with lenders.
  • The Truework partnership comes just days after Plaid introduced its Identity Verification and Monitoring solution, as well as its partnership with financial wellness company Current.

Income and employment verification company Truework has partnered with Plaid to help the firm launch its new Plaid Income product. Plaid Income will bring greater accuracy, security, and speed to the loan application process. Prospective borrowers will be able to share income and employment data digitally and instantly with their approved lenders. Plaid Income will provide faster approvals for loan applicants while giving lenders greater confidence that they are lending the right amounts, to the right people, at the most appropriate interest rate.

“We built Plaid Income to provide a more inclusive credit system for all,” Plaid Head of Revenue Paul Williamson explained. “Partners like Truework share our consumer-first vision to empower them with control of their own financial data. Combined with their digital approach to income verification, we’re excited that Plaid Payroll is now integrated into the Truework platforms.”

A Finovate alum since 2014, Plaid introduced itself to Finovate audiences as part of our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. In the years since, the San Francisco, California-based fintech has grown into a major force in the democratization of financial services, partnering with more than 6,000 fintechs – from Venmo to SoFi – as well as many of the world’s largest banks. The company’s network reaches 12,000 financial institutions in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Europe.

Most recently, in addition to its partnership with Truework, Plaid introduced a new verification and compliance solution, Plaid Identity Verification and Monitor, that helps reduce fraud and boost conversion rates. Launched earlier this month, the new offering features a complete verification, AML, and KYC compliance solution that serves multiple use cases including account opening and funding, trading, and lending. Also this month, U.S.-based financial wellness platform Current announced Plaid as its first partner. Current offers a platform API that helps fintechs to build embedded financial solutions.

“Our new platform API gives open banking partners the capability to embed our core banking technology,” Current CTO Trevor Marshall said. “With Plaid, our members can access experiences that can help improve their financial lives with control and security.”


Photo by Pixabay

Current Launches Platform API, Forges Partnership with Plaid

Current Launches Platform API, Forges Partnership with Plaid
  • Current launched its platform API today and introduced Plaid as its first partner.
  • The collaboration between Current and Plaid will enable Current members to access digital financial services from more than 6,000 apps and services on the Plaid network.
  • Current earned a valuation of $2.2 billion after securing $220 million in Series D funding last spring.

Fintech platform Current launched its platform API today. The new offering is designed to bring seamless integrations and embedded banking experiences to fintechs and financial services companies. The product launch is being accompanied by news that Current has secured its first partner, API-first data network Plaid. The partnership will enable Current members (totaling nearly four million) to access an even wider range of innovative digital financial solutions to help them better manage their finances. These solutions, available via the Plaid network, range from digital payments to financial planning to investment tools.

“Our new platform API gives open banking partners the capability to embed our core banking technology,” Current CTO Trevor Marshall said. “We’re thrilled to be working with Plaid, the industry leader in open banking, as our first partner. We enabled this integration in response to feedback from our members. With Plaid, our members can access experiences that can help improve their financial lives with control and security.”

In working with Plaid, Current will provide its members with a credential-less open finance experience, leveraging both Current’s API as well as phone number and device authentication to reduce friction.

“We’re thrilled to enable a simple, secure on-ramp to digital financial services for Current members, who are often banking for the first time in their lives,” Plaid Partnerships Lead for Universal Access Raja Chakravorti said. “The integration ensures that consumers are in control of where and how their financial data is permissioned and shared, information that is essential to setting up a healthy financial life.”

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in New York, Current offers a variety of solutions to help its members change their lives by creating better financial outcomes. The company offers up to 4.00% APY via its Savings Pods solution, provides overdraft protection of up to $200, enables early wage access for members who use direct deposit, and gives consumers up to 15x the points on qualifying transactions made via the Current debit card.

Current secured $220 million in Series D funding last spring in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The investment gave the company a valuation of $2.2 billion. Stuart Sopp is CEO.


Photo by Sebastian Voortman

Fintech Merger and Acquisition Activity Starts Strong in Q1 2022

Fintech Merger and Acquisition Activity Starts Strong in Q1 2022

While 2021 was a record year for fintech merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, 2022 is off to a great start.

According to FT Partners, there were 1,485 M&A deals in the fintech space totaling $348.5 billion in 2021. As Square’s $29 billion takeover of Afterpay demonstrated, last year’s massive volume is partially thanks to multiple large deals.

This quarter, only eight of the 21 deals initiated disclosed financial details. Of those, the deal volume added up to almost $5 billion.

January

February

March

While experts predict that 2022 M&A activity will likely see momentum from 2021, there are two aspects to watch out for this year. First, we will not see as many SPACs as we saw last year. This may decrease the number of companies choosing to exit this year. Second, fintech valuations are deflating after experiencing huge rises over the course of the past two years. While the loss in value won’t directly impact the number of M&A deals, it will decrease the deal volume.


Photo by Martin Lopez

Plaid and Green Dot Leverage Open Finance to Help Customers Access their Money

Plaid and Green Dot Leverage Open Finance to Help Customers Access their Money
  • Open finance company Plaid and money management solutions provider Green Dot entered into a partnership this week.
  • Green Dot will help its GO2bank customers connect to more than 6,000 apps and services powered by Plaid.
  • The partnership leverages Plaid Exchange, the company’s open finance API solution.

Open finance expert Plaid and money management solutions provider Green Dot have teamed up this week. The two are tapping the power of open finance to offer GO2bank customers more seamless data connectivity among and between their financial apps.

Leveraging Plaid’s open finance API solution Plaid Exchange, Green Dot will help its GO2bank customers securely connect to more than 6,000 apps and services powered by Plaid. The move ultimately offers end users access to a wider range of financial tools, which is critical for underbanked consumers.

“Our focus at Green Dot is giving all people the power to bank seamlessly, affordably, and with confidence,” said Green Dot Chief Product Officer Abhijit Chaudhary. “Through this partnership with Plaid, we are enabling real change in the industry by delivering an on-ramp for consumers who can benefit from simple, secure access to digital solutions.”

Launched in 2021, GO2bank was created to help Americans living paycheck to paycheck. The digital bank aims to offer a seamless and affordable experience that provides users with tools to serve their unique needs. For example, GO2bank offers up to $200 overdraft protection, high-interest savings accounts, credit building tools, and early wage access.

GO2bank parent company Green Dot was founded in 1999 and has since served more than 33 million customers. The company considers itself a branchless bank with more than 90,000 retail distribution locations across the U.S. In addition to its direct-to-consumer model, Green Dot also offers banking-as-a-service that enables banks and fintechs to leverage its bank charter, APIs, and cash deposit network to build out their own offerings.

With $734 million in funding, Plaid helps 12,000+ FIs offer their customers access to third party financial services via a suite of APIs to connect consumers, financial institutions, and developers. The company also offers a suite of analytics products that provides further insights into transactions. Plaid was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.


Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Marqeta Teams Up with Plaid to Simplify ACH Transfers

Marqeta Teams Up with Plaid to Simplify ACH Transfers
  • Marqeta and Plaid have teamed up to simplify and streamline the ACH transfer process to enable faster funding of financial accounts.
  • The collaboration is designed to provide both seamless account funding as well as additional security during data transfer.
  • Both Marqeta and Plaid made their Finovate debuts as part of Finovate’s developer conference series, FinDEVr.

A partnership between a pair of Finovate alums – card-issuing platform Marqeta and financial data network Plaid – will simplify ACH transfers to make it easier for customers to authenticate and fund their accounts.

Per the agreement, Marqeta customer cardholders will be able to transfer money seamlessly between customers and external accounts, as well as verify and link to external accounts faster. The company’s customers also will be able to keep cardholders informed on the status of fund transfers via real-time notifications, and better manage issues ranging from initiations to cancellations to return. Enhanced security is another benefit of the partnership. Marqeta customers no longer will need to store sensitive information from cardholders’ external bank accounts – relying instead on tokens while Plaid and Marqeta exchange necessary bank account information in the background.

“We’re making it as simple as possible for consumers to access their bank information from one application, and reduce the time it takes to fund and begin using their account,” Marqeta Chief Operating Officer Vidya Peters explained. “Through our Plaid integration, developers building on Marqeta can authenticate users’ bank accounts without the complexity and extra time associated with traditional ACH processing, creating an overall more seamless experience.”

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Oakland, California, Marqeta is an alum of our developers conference FinDEVr Silicon Valley. The company’s card issuing platform provides businesses with the infrastructure, technology, and tools to build and manage their own payment programs. Last month, Marqeta announced that it has secured certification to operate in three countries in Southeast Asia – Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines – which means the company’s platform is now enabled in 39 countries around the world. Marqeta announced that, with its further expansion into the Asia Pacific (the company is also active in Australia and New Zealand), it will establish an Asia Pacific regional hub in Singapore later this year.

Also a veteran of our developers conference, Plaid began 2022 with the launch of its data privacy solution, Plaid Portal. The new privacy tool is designed for customers who have used Plaid to connect their financial accounts to apps and services in the U.S. Plaid Portal allows account holders to see which apps have accessed their financial data and to control where the data is shared. The company calls the new offering “one of many tools” under development to give customers both greater visibility into and control over how their data is shared. Ideally, this additional transparency will help allay data privacy concerns and provide users with greater confidence when it comes to taking advantage of increasingly open nature of the modern digital financial ecosystem.


Photo by Steve Johnson from Pexels