February 09, 2022
Financial Access Newsletter - February 2022
Over the past year, Plaid has forged collaborative relationships with financial institutions (FIs), leading to API-based connectivity for millions of consumers. As the industry moves towards a credential-less API-based ecosystem, Plaid has made it a priority to delete credentials and increase traffic to APIs.
In 2022, we’ll remain focused on improving data security standards to ensure trust and safety in the open finance ecosystem while expanding our commitment to universal data access. Plaid’s recent acquisition of Cognito supports these efforts. Cognito is an identity verification and compliance (KYC, AML) platform that makes it faster, easier, and safer for people to verify their identity when signing up for financial services online.
Below are product updates, news and resources most relevant to our FI partners.
Key product updates
Plaid Portal
We are thrilled to announce Plaid Portal US, a privacy tool for consumers. Plaid Portal makes it easy for US consumers to control which apps have access to data they’ve shared through Plaid’s data connectivity and authorization management APIs. Interested in learning more about API connectivity or enabling consumer control capabilities within your own channels? Connect with your Plaid contact or email us.
Open Finance Data Security Standard
Plaid is raising the bar for data security as a founding supporter of the Open Finance Data Security Standard (OFDSS). The OFDSS proposes a framework of requirements that address security risks commonly encountered by emerging financial technology companies that handle consumer financial information. To provide feedback and help us improve security innovation, please visit OFDSS.org.
Onboarding Registry
We have also launched beta testing of Onboarding Registry, a new product that enables FIs to gain insight into which third-party apps and services have connected to their ecosystem via the Plaid network. Our partners can view each application’s business information, its use case, and the risk and compliance checks that Plaid conducts as part of the app onboarding process. If your institution would be interested in learning more about this new offering, please reach out to your Plaid partnerships contact or email us.
Interested in learning about early Plaid products and providing feedback that can help impact the development of new features? Sign up to take part in our research program.
Thought leadership and trends impacting open banking
What’s next with open banking in Canada?
Hear from an expert panel on what’s next with open banking in Canada, the opportunities ahead, and how fintechs and financial institutions can work towards enabling better financial service experiences for consumers.
An introduction to Embedded Finance
Embedded Finance is changing the competitive dynamics of many industries. Plaid COO Eric Sager, Accenture Cross-Industry Financial Services Lead Ben Brown, and Unit Finance’s CEO Itai Damti discuss how companies can unlock new revenue opportunities by surfacing financial products in context and at the point of customer need.
FDX real time event notification framework
Plaid collaborated with industry leaders from Intuit, JPMorgan Chase, and Koxa to develop the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) Notification Framework. In this webinar, the team explains how the framework can improve communication between entities when a consumer-initiated or programmatic event occurs e.g., fresh data is available, a consumer edits their permissions, or an API is undergoing a planned outage. This framework is charting towards FDX’s Spring API release, and when implemented can ensure accurate, up-to-date information across all user surfaces.
Plaid happenings
LendIt Fintech Industry Awards: Innovation in Digital Banking: Plaid
As open banking, accessibility, and inclusivity become synonymous with the future of banking, this award goes toward the company that has demonstrated a strong culture of innovation, producing significant advances in digital banking technology in the past year. "This industry giant [Plaid} continues to create groundbreaking technology that enables the growth of fintech," judges said. Read more here
In case you missed it
Ginger Baker, Head of Financial Access at Plaid, spoke at the Financial Times’ Global Banking Summit on consumer demands and the impact of Covid on open banking.
Raja Chakravorti, Financial Institutions Mid Market Leader for Plaid, spoke about Fintechs and the Promise of Inclusivity and Diversity at CES 2022.
John Pitts, Head of Global Policy at Plaid, and Raja Chakravorti discuss the year ahead in fintech for financial institutions, consumers, and policy watchers in this Breaking Banks podcast entitled Digital Adoption: Present and Future Growth.
In other news…
Plaid acquires Cognito, an identity verification and compliance platform
2022 fintech predictions with Plaid CEO, Zach Perret
Plaid leads effort to raise the bar on fintechs’ data security