Plaid, U.S. Bank Announce Open Banking Collaboration

Need to Know

• Plaid will allow U.S. Bank customers to connect their accounts to third-party apps to do so using an open API, eliminating the need to manually input details.
• The companies claim the integration was done “in record time.”
• Two months ago, Plaid undertook a similar integration with Bank of America.

Analysis

U.S. Bank and Plaid have entered into a new partnership that will allow banking customers to more seamlessly connect their accounts to third-party apps.

The new collaboration, announced on May 13, will deliver a secure, seamless experience to U.S. Bank customers by using a secure, open API, rather than a credentialed experience. Customers will be offered bi-directional functionality between U.S. Bank’s My Controls panel and the beta Plaid Portal, allowing them to adjust their permissions quickly and easily through either company’s experience. Those settings will remain synced across more than 4,500 apps on Plaid’s network, which includes Venmo, Stripe, Acorns, and Expensify, among others.

“What we did together with Plaid is a huge step forward in open finance, especially for our shared customers,” Gareth Gaston, executive VP and chief digital officer for platforms and capabilities at U.S. Bank, said in a statement. “The overall digital financial ecosystem is stronger when credentials are eliminated and replaced with secure APIs. It also helps customers have greater transparency, control and security to ultimately lead healthier financial lives.”

Plaid and U.S. Bank said the new integration between the two companies was done “in record time,” owing to the close partnership between them. “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have a shared vision for providing customers with secure, transparent and delightful digital experiences,” Ginger Baker, head of financial access at Plaid, said of the speedy integration.

The collaboration between Plaid and U.S. Bank comes as a number of major financial institutions are embracing open banking. Two months ago, Bank of America announced a Plaid partnership that would allows customers to see which third-party services they have shared their data with.

And earlier this week, American Express announced a partnership with Tink that will that company’s open API to allow new customers to connect their bank accounts to their AmEx account, sharing vital onboarding information such as income, and personal details such as name and address and eliminating the need to input such details manually. TD Bank, too, recently inked a deal with Finicity that will allow TD to offer customers the option to stop inputting banking credentials with third-party financial management services.