Enhancements to Plaid Link for an improved user experience

Earlier this year, we shared with you our goal of consistently leveling up Plaid Link, so that your customers can continue to conveniently connect their accounts with you. Today, we’re providing an update on recent improvements we’ve made to Plaid Link that provide an even more intuitive, consistent, and transparent experience for your customers to successfully connect their accounts. 

Straightforward search results for brands with multiple institutions

With connections to over 11,000 financial institutions globally, Plaid makes it easy for your customers to connect their accounts to your app. However, sometimes people select the wrong institution because they may not identify their institution within the same brand (e.g. Wells Fargo - Consumer or Wells Fargo - Business). As a result, your customers may not be able to link their accounts because the full set of options are not readily visible in search results. To solve this pain point and enable even more successful account connections, Plaid Link now groups together and explicitly calls out the distinct institution options when a user searches for a single brand. This way, your customers can find and select the correct institution more easily, improving their ability to link their accounts successfully. This has already been automatically rolled out globally. 

Improved guidance for unsupported and unstable connections

To help minimize negative experiences for your customers, Plaid Link now proactively messages when your customer is trying to link an unsupported or unstable connection. For example, there are financial institutions that may be incompatible with your application because they are not covered by Plaid for the product type(s) requested by your application. Now, your customers are informed when they’re attempting to link an unsupported institution before they attempt to submit credentials and prompted to search for another one to connect. This feature has already been automatically rolled out for Assets, Balance, Investments, Liabilities, and Transactions products globally. 

Additionally, there are times when an institution’s connectivity status is degraded that may be caused by a number of factors such as an unexpected surge in traffic or planned maintenance. When this occurs, your customers will see proactive prompts that warn them of potential issues connecting with those institutions before they attempt to submit credentials. Similarly, if connectivity is down (which Plaid defines as institutions that are experiencing less than 10% success rate), your customer will see a prompt that clearly notifies them of the connectivity issue, prevents them from submitting credentials, and prompts them to try another institution. All of these improvements strive to minimize potentially negative experiences and guide your customers to successfully connect their accounts with your application. This feature will be automatically rolled out globally beginning August 25, 2021.

Even more consistent iconography

Last year, we introduced the all-new Plaid Link, which showcases a cleaner, more accessible design. We’ve further iterated on the iconography featured within the Link flow to provide an even more consistent, transparent, and instructional experience. The refreshed iconography helps guide your customers through the relevant action for each pane within Link to successfully connect their accounts with your application. The refreshed iconography will be automatically rolled out to United States and Canada customers beginning August 25, 2021.

Smoothest experience with the latest SDKs

We always recommend integrating with the Link SDKs because they provide an optimal experience for you and your customers. This month, we released Android 3.5, iOS 2.2, and React Native 7.1 SDKs. With these versions, you gain a simpler integration experience - especially for OAuth flows - compared to integrating with WebView. Plus, if you do encounter challenges, our team can help debug with SDK implementations to ensure your customers are able to successfully link their accounts with your app. We encourage you to implement or upgrade to the latest versions by November 2022. Versions prior to Android 3.5, iOS 2.2.2, and React Native 7.1 will not be supported after November 1, 2022.

What next?

We encourage you to upgrade to the latest Link SDK as soon as possible. Otherwise, there is no action required to take advantage of these Plaid Link enhancements. 

We understand the critical role Plaid Link plays in your customers’ experience with your business. Our focus remains on continuously improving Plaid Link for you and your customers.