Plaid: bank connectivity, brokerage funding and financial-data workflows

Plaid supplies the account connections, financial data and payment workflows used inside brokerage, wealth, lending and other financial applications. A broker can use it to link a funding account, verify the account holder, collect money and reconcile payment status. The product choice changes both the data returned and the parties responsible for moving funds.[1][5]

Identity Verification checks the person signing up through selected data-source, document and selfie checks. Identity checks ownership information on a linked financial account. They can be combined, but answer different questions. Identity Verification accepts integrators based in the US, Canada or UK and describes end-user verification in nearly 190 countries; coverage of a particular document or check still depends on the configured country template.[6]

Monitor adds sanctions and politically exposed person screening, configurable programs and a queue for reviewing potential matches. It supports ongoing rescans and exposes decisions through the Dashboard and API. A compliance team must assign review responsibility and distinguish an unresolved hit from a confirmed match. Its published integrator-location rule is also US, Canada or UK.[22]

Transactions covers bank, card and loan account activity. The initial history request defaults to 90 days and can extend to 730 days; subsequently observed transactions accumulate while the connection remains in place. Investment-account activity uses the separate Investments product. Plaid Check’s Consumer Report serves US entities evaluating US consumers through a consumer-reporting subsidiary, with income, underwriting and home-lending modules.[21][23]

Link is the account-connection interface for most Plaid workflows. Plaid supplies web, iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter options, with Hosted Link for suitable hosted or webview journeys. Many account-data integrations exchange a short-lived public token for an access token held by the application’s server. Some identity and credit products use different identifiers, so the integration should follow the selected product’s flow. OAuth banks redirect users to their own authentication channel.[19]

Institution coverage must be checked by product and country. Plaid explicitly says its public US/Canada explorer is not updated in real time and points customers to the Dashboard or Institutions API for current support. A bank appearing in the network therefore does not establish availability of every field, payment rail or investment-data product for that institution.[16]

For event processing, the published webhook contract requires handling duplicates and events arriving out of order. A receiver normally has ten seconds to acknowledge delivery; retryable failures can be retried for up to 24 hours, while most permanent client errors are not retried. Plaid documents recovery through product APIs and a beta event-list endpoint. Funding and reconciliation logic should verify events and remain recoverable after the retry window.[20]

The US/Canada pricing page publishes plan structure, but does not display a generally accessible numeric product tariff. Actual rates are exposed during the production application or through a sales quotation. The appropriate comparison is the agreed chargeable unit, expected connections and payment activity, rather than the number of HTTP requests alone.[10]

New US/Canada teams can apply for the documented Trial plan, limited to ten Production Items. Removing an Item does not replenish that trial allowance. Sandbox traffic is free. For paid subscriptions, the billing guidance uses calendar months in UTC without mid-month proration and requires the documented deletion or termination action to end charges; the signed agreement governs exceptions.[11]

Production deployment needs product approval as well as a working sandbox integration. Plaid now directs teams to its personalised Launch Center; the older public checklist is no longer updated. That checklist covers secure token storage, institution-error recovery, consent update mode and distinct test/production Identity Verification templates. Teams should use the current account-specific launch steps and assign responsibility for failed connections and consent renewal.[17]

Transfer has its own application and approval step before live integration. A test can begin in Sandbox while approval is pending. Virtual Accounts requires a sales or account-management request even for sandbox access. These access gates make an API prototype a different milestone from permission to process the intended customer flow.[4][7]

Investments Move can broaden coverage through masked-number matching, stated account numbers or manual entry. Its response identifies which values came from the broker, which were verified against partial information and which were merely entered by the user. That provenance should remain visible to the transfer team: fallback coverage expands the journey without making every submitted field broker-verified.[3]

Developer support uses Dashboard diagnostics, request logs and the Item Debugger. Filing a ticket requires Production access and the team’s Support permission. The public documentation distinguishes developer requests, end-user connection help and support for financial institutions supplying data. Plan descriptions offer different support packages, but the reviewed public pages do not establish one universal response-time commitment.[18][10]

The Dutch central bank’s record directly matches Plaid, B.V., company number 74716603, LEI 7245006VF0O83RBSW372 and relation R179714. It lists a payment institution authorised for account information services from 12 February 2021 and payment initiation services from 18 February 2022, with specified EEA passport entries. Those activities establish the scope of that entity’s open-banking role; they do not authorise a customer brokerage’s investment business.[12]

The UK agreement names Plaid Financial Ltd. and reports FCA reference 804718 for account information and payment initiation services. This UK permission statement is attributed to that agreement; the review directly matched the Dutch register entry. The application’s investment products require their own contractual and regulatory basis.[13]

Separate Modulr electronic-money terms govern relevant payment arrangements. The selected contract determines the account supplier and safeguarding treatment; a Plaid data connection alone does not establish where money is held.[13]

Plaid’s regional subsidiaries supply different services under the group’s agreements. The Developer Policy, effective 19 April 2026, applies alongside the service contract and provides for suspension or termination following breaches.[13]

Plaid announced its acquisition of investment-data specialist Quovo on 8 January 2019 and identity and compliance platform Cognito on 20 January 2022. These acquisitions expanded the group’s capabilities in investment data and identity workflows, which helps explain why a brokerage may encounter Plaid across both portfolio connectivity and customer onboarding.[14][15]

Operator

Plaid Inc. and regional subsidiaries including Plaid Financial Ltd., Plaid, B.V. and Plaid Consumer Reporting Agency, Inc.

Service scope

Permissioned financial-account connectivity and data, brokerage transfer information, identity/screening, and region-specific payment services for approved business customers.

Customer types

Brokerages; Wealth platforms; Fintech applications; Lenders; Payment businesses; Financial institutions

Delivery

API; SaaS; Hosted

Pricing publication

Quote only

Platforms

Plaid Link; Auth; Transfer; Investments; Investments Move; Identity Verification; Monitor; Payments in Europe; Virtual Accounts; Consumer Report; Layer

Integrations

REST APIs; Web SDK; iOS SDK; Android SDK; React Native SDK; Flutter SDK; Hosted Link; OAuth financial-institution connections; Product webhooks

Pricing scope

Public plan structure and free testing/trial options; paid numeric rates require a production application or quotation. Product billing units and regional eligibility differ.

Implementation

Select country/product coverage; integrate Link and relevant APIs; complete production and payment approvals; maintain consent, token storage, event verification and reconciliation.

Support

Customer Dashboard tickets and diagnostics, public developer docs, end-user portal and a separate institution-support route; commercial support level follows the plan.

Permissions and regulatory scope

DNB record R179714 confirms Plaid, B.V. payment initiation and account information services. UK reference 804718 is attributed to the published UK agreement. Account/data services do not extend permissions to a brokerage customer.

Provider metadata checked 21 Oct 2026Source 1Source 2Source 3Source 4Source 5Source 6Source 7Source 8Source 9Source 10Source 11Source 12Source 13Source 14Source 15Source 17Source 18Source 19Source 20Source 22Source 23Source 24

The US Ledger documentation distinguishes availability within the Ledger from withdrawal into the business’s own bank account. Same Day ACH withdrawal may add a business day, and payout instructions require enough available balance. A brokerage offering immediate purchasing power therefore needs a documented funding and credit policy around these states, including the effect of reversals.[9]

For portfolio views, Investments ordinarily checks for updates during market days, with most holding changes detected overnight; on-demand refresh is an add-on. The documentation also gives institution-specific production-access lead times, including approximately four weeks for standard Fidelity access on Growth/Custom plans and up to five business days for Schwab. These are connectivity-planning details, not trading execution times.[2]

Layer provides a separate US onboarding route using a user’s saved Plaid profile and the eligibility rules in the customer’s template. It requires a fallback for users without an eligible profile and is incompatible with Hosted Link and webview modes. Plaid Check documentation also contains forthcoming endpoints labelled for 30 October 2026; this profile treats them as future availability relative to its 21 October check date.[24][23]