December 16, 2020
Curve and Plaid team up to make money easier
Keith Grose
Money problems for many people often come down to a fundamental lack of understanding. Time and again, simple questions like, “what can I afford?” or “how am I doing financially?” are hard to answer. To help, Plaid brings people closer to their own financial picture. Innovators around the world rely on us to connect to consumer-permissioned financial data so they can offer consumers new ways of managing their money.
Today, we’re joining forces with Curve to help give people in the UK a holistic view of their money, make the most of their spending, and improve their overall financial wellbeing—particularly amid a tough economic climate for many.
Curve consolidates your entire physical wallet (debit, credit* and loyalty cards) into a single smart card and app. The only card customers need to carry—and the only PIN they need to remember—Curve offers a host of benefits, including spending notifications and categorisation, plus the ability to earn instant 1% cashback at the likes of Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Sainsbury’s, and Tesco. Customers can even swap spend to a different card in the app for up to 90 days after a purchase was made.
For the first time ever on the app, Curve customers will be able to gather all their cards, see and spend their money in the same place. Plaid’s technology will enable Curve customers to connect their payment accounts at nearly all financial institutions in the UK, in addition to the cards they’ve linked. Curve will also provide real-time account balances for every linked credit and debit card, which will automatically be refreshed upon signing into the app. This way Curve is helping customers be on top of their finances, knowing how much money they have across all accounts, at a glance and be able to spend with confidence.
As the shift to digital finance accelerates, an insightful, simple customer experience is key. Both Plaid and Curve share that understanding and are building experiences together that make the financial lives of Curve customers as easy as possible.
As André Pinto, one of Curve’s Product Managers, and who jointly steered the project to completion, said, “This is the next step in Curve’s mission to become an all-in-one platform that aggregates your finances, and gives you the power to act on this knowledge. Being a major player in the Open Banking space, Plaid gives us the firepower to develop more products and innovate in lockstep with the fast-moving habits of our customers. At the end of the day, we also liked each other as people, and ended up spending more time together online than we did with our own families.”
This is just the beginning of our work together. In the coming years, Plaid and Curve will continue to develop new tools that give more Curve customers more unique ways to manage and spend their money. In the meantime, download the Curve app to try these new features available in the UK today. If you’re looking to build with Plaid’s account information or payment initiation products today—or just curious on what we have up our sleeve next—please reach out!
*Mastercard and Visa branded credit and debit cards.