May 06, 2026
Introducing Plaid Cash Advance Index for smarter decisioning
Cash advances can provide valuable short-term financial relief to consumers who need it the most, like the 67% of US consumers living paycheck to paycheck. However, these consumers can be difficult to evaluate, and cash advance providers are too often forced to choose between taking on delinquency risk or missing out on growth.
The root problem: most cash advance decisions rely on cash flow data, rules, and point-in-time signals from a single linked bank account, creating an incomplete picture of a user’s financial behavior. As consumers juggle multiple sources of income and several lending, buy-now-pay-later, and cash advance apps, that blind spot is growing, and getting more expensive.
Today we're launching Plaid Cash Advance Index: a risk solution built specifically for cash advance and earned wage access providers that surfaces repayment risk across a user’s full financial footprint. Plaid powers many of the top cash advance providers in the market and enriches 800 million transactions daily across our network. The Cash Advance Index leverages that network to give insights into the behavior of a user across the financial ecosystem, enabling smarter cash advance decisions that maximize growth.
See hidden repayment risk
The Cash Advance Index predicts the likelihood of repayment within 30 days, with scores ranging from 1 to 99 across advance amounts from $25 to $500. The higher the score, the higher the likelihood of repayment.
The Cash Advance Index is built on a mix of cash flow and proprietary insights from account connection activity across the Plaid network, and is trained on real cash advance repayment outcomes to optimize approval and advance sizing. Plaid's network spans thousands of apps and services, with over 1 million accounts connected every day. The breadth and depth of our network gives Plaid visibility into behavioral signals not available anywhere else, including patterns like concurrent connections to multiple cash advance providers, or repayments across the ecosystem. For instance, a user with 3 or more new connections to cash advance apps in the last 3 days from several bank accounts is likely taking out multiple concurrent advances against the same paycheck, which can mean higher risk. That signal is only available through Plaid's network.
"The Cash Advance Index has uplevelled how we assess risk. By combining traditional cash flow data with Plaid's network insights, we can predict cash advance delinquency with a level of precision we couldn't achieve before, and make smarter decisions on advance sizing and repayments from day one."
— Shan Xu, Chief Risk Officer, Credit Genie
Built for the full cash advance lifecycle
A first-time user and a returning user have different risk profiles. The Cash Advance Index includes two models to capture this nuance.
The onboarding model focuses on onboarding and qualifying the first advance. It assesses repayment likelihood to extend the right amount from day one.
The ongoing model focuses on repayment likelihood for repeat advances. It leverages repayment history and usage patterns to provide more accurate risk signals over time.
While making a decision to grant a cash advance is important, optimizing for repayment is equally critical. The Cash Advance Index models can be used to sharpen repayment strategy by checking whether the user's risk profile has shifted, with no impact on the user experience. For example, a low-risk user that now appears significantly higher risk can be prioritized ahead of other low-risk users for repayment. The Cash Advance Index is designed to be integrated into every decision point in a provider’s workflow, ensuring maximum knowledge for optimal results.
What the results show
In a live production test, the Cash Advance Index produced an 8% relative reduction in delinquency with no change in approval rates. Moreover, the Cash Advance Index was 17% more predictive in distinguishing between low- and high- risk users and 2X more performative than other models used by the provider. That level of precision is meaningful, whether in hitting growth targets or keeping delinquencies in check.
Get started with the Cash Advance Index
The Cash Advance Index fundamentally changes how cash advance decisions are made today. By combining cash flow and network insights, providers can maximize their revenue by better assessing risk and consumers in need can receive the maximum advance.