What is Plaid? | Plaid (2024)

FAQs

What is Plaid? | Plaid? ›

Plaid is a third-party technology company that allows you to easily and safely connect your bank account to an app. It was recently acquired by Visa. Mint, Quickbooks, Venmo, and student loan servicers all use Plaid since it is the industry standard to safely and securely connect bank accounts.

When you link your checking account with a financial application through Plaid, the company instantly encrypts sensitive data and shares it with the application using a secure connection. Plaid will also never share your login and password info with the linked financial application.

Plaid software operates between your financial information and financial sites that you want to receive your data. Using a service like Plaid prevents financial sites from having access to all of your banking and other data. Instead, you only share the specific information that you indicate.

Disconnect your bank account from Plaid

When on the Banking page, look for the bank account you are trying to disconnect and click the three dots on the right of the line item. Select Disconnect Bank.

We collect the data to power the services you've chosen and, when requested, securely share it with the app you're using and establish a secure connection that you control. We only share personal financial information with a consumer's permission.

Plaid is used by millions of people to safely connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they love and trust. Plaid never shares your data without your permission, and we don't sell or rent your financial information to outside companies.

Whether it is an offer for a job, a loan, or even a friend claiming that they want to send you money, never share your online banking information. Anyone asking for your username or password to your online banking does not have your best interests at heart and is an indicator of a scam.

Plaid does not charge consumers for using our services.

Widely used banks that use our instant bank linking system (Plaid) Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, US Bank, USAA, Fidelity, PNC, Capital One, TD Bank, SunTrust, Navy Federal, BB&T, etc.

Behind the scenes, Plaid sends a single micro-deposit to the user's account and will automatically verify the deposited amounts within one to two business days. When verification succeeds or fails, Plaid sends an Auth webhook, which you can use to notify the user that their account is ready to move money.

Can you opt out of Plaid? ›

If you no longer wish for a particular app to be able to access your data via Plaid, you can disconnect your financial accounts from the app at any time.

Create a Plaid Portal account to view and delete your saved data from Plaid's systems. Submit a request via our Privacy Request Form, which can be used to submit a request to exercise your data protection rights, regardless of where you live.

But Plaid is safe to use. It facilitates communication between the bank and the app so that only necessary data is shared. And at the end of the day, Plaid keeps your login information private and uses top-of-the-line encryption to secure your details.

If you haven't used Plaid before, you might be concerned about whether the company is legit. So is Plaid safe? Based on the service's acceptance rate, you can feel relatively confident. More than 12,000 financial institutions and more than 8,000 apps and services count on the Plaid to securely share information.

Your data, your choice

With Plaid, you're in control. You choose whom your data is shared with, for what purpose, and how long. Some of the most common information we help people share includes: Account and routing number.

Plaid Identity Verification lets you verify the identity of your customers and seamlessly stitches together verification methods. Using Identity Verification, you can verify identification documents, phone numbers, name, date of birth, ID numbers, addresses, and more.

It's generally considered safe to give out your account number and sort code, but you should always use common sense and avoid sharing your bank details with people you don't know or expect payments from.

Password resets

If you ever forget your password to your Plaid Dashboard account, use the Password reset button on the login page to reset your password. You will only be able to receive your password reset email if you have verified your Plaid email address.

Venmo uses Plaid to verify your bank account information and, periodically, your bank account balance to check if you have enough funds to cover certain transactions.

If you see this error message, there can be a few things affecting the login credentials you've entered. Typos. They happen - even to the best of us! Maybe you're using a new keyboard or your finger slipped; first and foremost, try again and give it another go.