CUSTOMER: Stash
Winning customers with easy onboarding
Plaid provides a fast, simple, and secure way for Stash customers to connect their external accounts.
Goal
Onboard users, reduce fraud
Region
United States
Industry
Fintech
An easier way to link accounts
For millions of Americans who want to invest in themselves but don’t know where to start, investing apps like Stash are a welcome solution.
Founded in 2015, New York-based Stash is one of the fastest-growing financial subscription platforms in the United States. With six million customers and counting, its popularity can be attributed in part to its radical accessibility. Memberships start at just $1 a month, giving customers easy and affordable access to a suite of products including investing, banking, education, and financial advice.
Many of these services require access to a customer’s outside financial accounts. To link them, Stash previously relied on microdeposits. But this slow and error-prone process muddled the onboarding experience, resulting in a low conversion rate. Their subsequent experiment with an external provider wasn’t
much better.
Stash needed a simple, fast and reliable way for customers to connect their outside financial accounts. That’s when they turned to Plaid.
21%
With Plaid, 21% more Stash customers were able to link an outside financial account compared with the previous provider
19%
Since switching to Plaid, 19% more Stash customers funded their accounts compared with the previous provider
15%
Retention after six months is 15% higher for customers who connect with Plaid compared with those who do so using micro-deposits
A better onboarding experience
With Plaid, users simply select their financial institution from a list and enter the username and password for the associated accounts. Plaid now connects to more than 11,000 financial institutions—often in a matter of seconds.
For Stash, this account-connection step triggers a series of safeguards designed to protect both consumers and Stash. For instance, Plaid enables Stash to authenticate the user’s outside bank account. That helps keep bad actors out.
“With any type of fraud, there’s potential liability, so we save money by limiting our risk,” explains Dan Mendes, Senior Director of Product at Stash. “By allowing us to verify users’ identities, Plaid helps us save money—period.”
When it’s time for customers to fund their new accounts, Stash uses Plaid to check the balance of the customer’s outside account. This helps the new user select a funding amount they can afford and cuts down on costly overdraft fees.
These simple interventions contribute to a better onboarding experience, according to Mendes. In fact, since switching to Plaid from a previous vendor, conversion rate is up 21% and the number of customers funding their Stash accounts is up 19%.
"Plaid makes onboarding seamless and allows customers to start moving money on the platform right away. And that’s critical when we think about helping customers start their journeys towards building long-term wealth.”
Senior Director of Product, Stash
Increased retention through personalization
Stash’s core services of investing, banking, and a debit card that rewards customers with stock (the Stock-Back® Card) get customers in the virtual door.
But it’s the company’s personalized insights and guidance, such as budgeting advice, that keeps customers coming back. To power these services, Stash relies on the 24-month transaction history Plaid provides. This allows Stash to share personalized financial insights with users, helping them meet their money goals.
“Plaid gives us a good sense of what the customer’s financial life looks like,which helps us make recommendations about how much they should depositor invest at any given moment,” says Mendes.
Stash is able to recommend other products based on insights from Plaid as well. Visibility into a customer’s finances enables Stash to make personalized offers based on spending patterns. For example, if Stash sees that a customer subscribes to Spotify, they can suggest paying for the subscription with the Stash debit card. In return, the customer would receive 2X Stock-Back®—a program that rewards users with stock in the companies on their everyday purchases.
From more targeted offers to more relevant financial advice, personalization has boosted retention at Stash. To wit, retention after six months is 15% higher for customers who connect with Plaid, compared with those who do so using microdeposits.
“When people link with Plaid, we know more about them and can personalize their experience, ultimately better helping them hit their unique financial goals,” says Mendes.
A B2B2C mentality
Having evaluated several financial data aggregators, Mendes appreciates Plaid’s focus on end-users, noting that the company is constantly engaged in understanding the challenges Stash customers are facing.
“Plaid embodies a B2B2C mentality,” says Mendes.
Looking ahead, Stash plans to expand their usage of Plaid as they continue to grow their product suite. After a year of record-high revenue, the company sees Plaid as a key enabler of future growth.
“I don’t think Stash is truly fulfilling its mission until we’re helping all of the American middle class,” concludes Mendes. “Plaid is critical in helping us get there.”