Company Focus: Who Is Plaid?

We turn the focus to Plaid, who was named in our list of the top ten technology startups, what makes them so special?

Business Overview:
Plaid is focused on democratizing financial services through technology. They build beautiful consumer experiences, developer-friendly infrastructure, and intelligent tools that give everyone the ability to create amazing products that solve big problems. Plaid started out by building the technical infrastructure APIs that connect consumers, traditional financial institutions, and developers. Today, they add key insights to the data access we provide with our suite of analytics products. The company values cross-team collaboration and diversity of thought. There’s always an opportunity to learn from each other outside of day-to-day work, whether it’s company-wide offsites, internal hackathons, or co-worker meetups.

Why Plaid?

Open Banking Integrations
Plaid’s integrations are Open Banking and PSD2 compliant, delivering secure and reliable access to the UK and European financial ecosystems.

Global network
Plaid is a leading provider in the UK, Europe and North America, connecting 3,000+ apps to 11,000+ financial institutions, all through a single API.

For developers, by developers
Plaid builds with developers in mind. Get set up in the Dashboard instantly, and with just a few lines of code, you can implement Plaid in an afternoon.

Products and services:

Personal finances:
Obtaining a comprehensive picture of users’ financial health is oftentimes difficult when they have accounts at multiple financial institutions.
Plaid consolidates financial data from multiple sources and categorizes transaction data with typically 24 months of history, making it easy to use and analyze.

Consumer payments: Receiving payments via direct bank transfer is significantly less expensive than using credit cards, but getting users signed in and authenticated is a cumbersome process.
Plaid makes it faster and easier to set up bank payments through a flow designed with the user experience and security in mind. Users enter their online credentials and Plaid instantly authenticates their account. Plus, in the US, Plaid works with any ACH processor (including Stripe and Dwolla) to simplify bank-to-bank payments.

Lending: Lenders must gather holistic pictures of their applicants, but the process of collecting income information, account balances, and asset history creates considerable work for both the borrower and lender. Additionally, getting borrowers to connect their bank accounts to receive capital and repay loans is a cumbersome process.
Plaid provides borrowers with an easy, streamlined loan experience; and lenders with access to bank data to make informed loan decisions.

Banking and brokerage: Account onboarding can be a cumbersome process with users waiting days for micro-deposits to post.
Plaid speeds up account onboarding and supports ongoing payments for checking, savings, credit card, and brokerage accounts.

Business finance: From bookkeeping to payroll, business finance and accounting processes are complex experiences for employees and customers alike.
Plaid reduces administrative time by giving users an easier way to connect their financial accounts to your software or app.

Plaid in the news:
Plaid has recently joined forces with Visa, in an aim to grow the business even more and continue to provide a seamless customer experience.

“Joining forces with Visa, a brand that is trusted by billions of consumers, and financial institutions in over 200 countries and territories, represents an incredible opportunity to continue to scale our products. We’ll be able to lean on their brand, resources, and international footprint to benefit our customers, our partners, and the markets we serve.
We were very impressed by the Visa team from the minute they approached us. They share our vision for the future of financial services and have deep respect for the developer community we support. They want us to operate as an independent business unit so we can keep doing what we do best. We’ll be able to lean on their brand, resources, and international footprint if doing so can benefit our customers, our partners, and the markets we serve.”

Find out more about the innovative startup, here.