June 10, 2025
Unlock smarter lending with our ecosystem partners
Cash flow data isn’t just an alternative anymore—it’s essential to modern lending. More and more lenders tell us they want a holistic view of a borrower’s financial health, and they’re turning to cash flow data to support responsible credit decisions. But today, that data is often hard to access, harder to use, and rarely built to fit into existing loan and underwriting systems.
Plaid is changing that. We’re excited to expand our partner ecosystem to include credit analytics, technology, and software providers to make cash flow data more accessible and usable at scale. By working with industry leaders like Experian, FICO, MeridianLink and others—lenders can tap into Plaid’s credit solutions through the platforms they already know and trust. The result: faster loan applications, smarter risk decisions, and broader credit access for more people.
Powering the financial system with real-time data
For more than a decade, Plaid has been building the infrastructure for a more open and connected financial system—one that drives innovation, fosters competition, and puts people in control of their financial data. That foundation now supports millions of people and businesses accessing credit through lenders like Affirm, Mission Lane, Oportun, N26, Rocket, SoFi, Square, Upstart, and Zillow Home Loans.
Now, we’re building on that foundation to make real-time cash flow data easier to access and incorporate into lending processes—giving lenders a deeper understanding of financial health from the very start of a borrower’s credit journey. While traditional credit data remains important, combining it with cash flow data creates new opportunities to assess risk more efficiently. As part of this, we recently announced a new relationship with Experian that brings together real-time cash flow data with risk analytics to help lenders improve decisioning, pinpoint risk, and drive financial inclusion.
Plaid’s credit solutions include Consumer Report which is designed to make permissioned cash flow data both scalable and effective in a FCRA-compliant way to use alongside traditional credit data. Launched last year, Consumer Report brings together two key capabilities:
Seamless account linking: Plaid offers a secure, streamlined account linking experience that minimizes user friction and increases conversion in an application flow. The experience gets even better when someone has saved their information with Plaid—they can instantly and securely share their cash flow, income, and identity data with a lender. This gives lenders real-time data early in the application process and helps more borrowers get considered for credit or housing.
Built-in-insights: Our models transform messy cash flow data into structured, actionable insights—giving lenders a dynamic view into a borrower’s financial life. This includes account connection activity across 7,000+ financial apps on the Plaid Network, which can signal healthy financial behaviors.
Plaid’s credit solutions are now available through integrations with our ecosystem partners, making it easier than ever for lenders to evaluate borrowers with greater accuracy and speed.
Seamless access to cash flow for efficient lending workflows
Plaid is an API-first company, and today hundreds of lenders use our APIs to access permissioned financial data. But not every lender is set up to build from scratch. Many operate on complex systems or have limited technical resources—making deep API integration a barrier to using cash flow data.
That’s why we’re meeting lenders where they are. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, we’re making cash flow data accessible to the platforms and workflows lenders already use. Whether it’s through a credit decisioning engine, loan origination system or analytics tool, lenders can now access real-time cash flow data with minimal lift.
Here are few examples of how lenders can use cash flow data through our partners:
Experian is integrating real-time cash flow data from Consumer Report with their Cashflow Attributes and Cashflow Score to provide real-time visibility and enhance decisioning.
Fannie Mae is continuing to collaborate with Plaid to augment the role of cash flow data in mortgage underwriting and secondary market adoption. Plaid is an authorized report supplier for the DU validation service through Consumer Report which can provide lenders Day 1 Certainty® from Fannie Mae.
FICO provides lenders access to Plaid’s credit and fraud solutions through the FICO® Marketplace to improve efficiency across the loan lifecycle.
LoanPro is empowering lenders to take proactive servicing and collections strategies based on real-time insights on income, savings balances, and debt trends.
MeridianLink is helping banks and credit unions deliver efficient consumer lending experiences by quickly verifying incomes using cash flow data.
MoneyLion is using cash flow data as part of their Engine marketplace platform to match people with personalized financial solutions from their lending partners.
Our ecosystem extends beyond the U.S., supporting lenders in the U.K. and E.U. through partners like Taktile. With access to real-time open banking data to enhance the entire underwriting process, more lenders like YouLend are able to offer fast and flexible ways for people and businesses to access funding.
What industry leaders are saying
By working together, we can build more inclusive lending experiences that reflect the full picture of a borrower’s financial life. Across the industry, leaders are recognizing the value of using cash flow data along with credit reports and credit-based scores to drive more accurate, equitable decisions. Here’s what some of them are saying.
The future of lending is here
Cash flow data is the answer lenders have been looking for to unlock more credit opportunities. With real-time data and predictive insights, lenders can accelerate their next growth phase and deliver better outcomes for more borrowers while managing risk. Now, whether you're a mortgage lender, an auto lender or a buy-now-pay-later provider, you can tap into the power of cash flow data through the analytics, software, and tools offered by our growing ecosystem of partners.
This is the future of lending and with Plaid’s partner ecosystem, lenders can get started right now and see results quickly. To learn more about our ecosystem partners, connect with us today.