Introduction to Assets

Learn how to use Assets to access users' financial information for loan underwriting.

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Assets data is used to determine whether a user has enough assets to qualify for a loan. Plaid's Assets product allows you to access a user's Asset Report via the /asset_report/get (JSON) and /asset_report/pdf/get (PDF) endpoints. Asset Reports are created on a per-user basis and include a snapshot of information about a user's identity, transaction history, account balances, and more.

For a fuller view of a borrower's financial situation, Assets can be used with Bank Income, which provides user-permissioned income streams derived from deposit activity.

Assets flow

There are a few steps you will need to take to obtain an Asset Report for a particular user.

First, using Link, create Items for each of the user's financial institutions; in doing so, you will obtain an access_token for each institution. You can use these tokens to obtain an Asset Report as long as the access_token was generated with assets included in Link's product array. With Assets, the user, upon using Link to authenticate with their financial institution, will need to provide consent for Plaid to access account balances, account holder information, and transaction history for that institution. Should the user revoke access via my.plaid.com, Plaid will notify you via a webhook.
Once you have the required access_tokens, call the /asset_report/create endpoint to create an Asset Report. Note that Asset Reports are not created instantly.
To retrieve an Asset Report in JSON format, call the /asset_report/get endpoint. To retrieve an Asset Report in PDF format, call the /asset_report/pdf/get endpoint. Note that Asset Reports are not created instantly; listen to assets webhooks to be notified when a requested Asset Report is ready. To retrieve an Asset Report with cleaned and categorized transactions as well as additional information about merchants and locations in JSON format, call the /asset_report/get endpoint with include_insights=true.
Sometimes, third party auditors need to see Asset Reports to audit lenders' decision making processes. To provide an Audit Copy of an Asset Report to a requesting third party, call the /asset_report/audit_copy/create endpoint and provide the auditor with an audit_copy_token. The auditor needs to be integrated with Plaid in order to view Audit Copies. Currently, Fannie Mae and Ocrolus are the only auditors integrated with Plaid.

Sample asset report
Copy
1{
"report": {
  "asset_report_id": "bf3a0490-344c-4620-a219-2693162e4b1d",
  "client_report_id": "123abc",
  "date_generated": "2020-06-05T22:47:53Z",
  "days_requested": 2,
  "items": [
    {
      "accounts": [
        {
          "account_id": "3gE5gnRzNyfXpBK5wEEKcymJ5albGVUqg77gr",
          "balances": {
            "available": 200,
            "current": 210,
            "iso_currency_code": "USD",
            "limit": null,
            "unofficial_currency_code": null
          },
          "days_available": 2,
          "historical_balances": [
            {
              "current": 210,
              "date": "2020-06-04",
              "iso_currency_code": "USD",
              "unofficial_currency_code": null
            },
            {
              "current": 210,
              "date": "2020-06-03",
              "iso_currency_code": "USD",
              "unofficial_currency_code": null
            }
          ],
          "mask": "1111",
          "name": "Plaid Saving",
          "official_name": "Plaid Silver Standard 0.1% Interest Saving",
          "owners": [
            {
              "addresses": [
                {
                  "data": {
                    "city": "Malakoff",
                    "country": "US",
                    "postal_code": "14236",
                    "region": "NY",
                    "street": "2992 Cameron Road"
                  },
                  "primary": true
                },
                {
                  "data": {
                    "city": "San Matias",
                    "country": "US",
                    "postal_code": "93405-2255",
                    "region": "CA",
                    "street": "2493 Leisure Lane"
                  },
                  "primary": false
                }
              ],
              "emails": [
                {
                  "data": "accountholder0@example.com",
                  "primary": true,
                  "type": "primary"
                },
                {
                  "data": "extraordinarily.long.email.username.123456@reallylonghostname.com",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "other"
                }
              ],
              "names": ["Alberta Bobbeth Charleson"],
              "phone_numbers": [
                {
                  "data": "1112223333",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "home"
                },
                {
                  "data": "1112225555",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "mobile1"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "ownership_type": null,
          "subtype": "savings",
          "transactions": [],
          "type": "depository"
        },
        {
          "account_id": "BxBXxLj1m4HMXBm9WZJyUg9XLd4rKEhw8Pb1J",
          "balances": {
            "available": null,
            "current": 56302.06,
            "iso_currency_code": "USD",
            "limit": null,
            "unofficial_currency_code": null
          },
          "days_available": 2,
          "historical_balances": [],
          "mask": "8888",
          "name": "Plaid Mortgage",
          "official_name": null,
          "owners": [
            {
              "addresses": [
                {
                  "data": {
                    "city": "Malakoff",
                    "country": "US",
                    "postal_code": "14236",
                    "region": "NY",
                    "street": "2992 Cameron Road"
                  },
                  "primary": true
                },
                {
                  "data": {
                    "city": "San Matias",
                    "country": "US",
                    "postal_code": "93405-2255",
                    "region": "CA",
                    "street": "2493 Leisure Lane"
                  },
                  "primary": false
                }
              ],
              "emails": [
                {
                  "data": "accountholder0@example.com",
                  "primary": true,
                  "type": "primary"
                },
                {
                  "data": "extraordinarily.long.email.username.123456@reallylonghostname.com",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "other"
                }
              ],
              "names": ["Alberta Bobbeth Charleson"],
              "phone_numbers": [
                {
                  "data": "1112223333",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "home"
                },
                {
                  "data": "1112225555",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "mobile1"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "ownership_type": null,
          "subtype": "mortgage",
          "transactions": [],
          "type": "loan"
        },
        {
          "account_id": "dVzbVMLjrxTnLjX4G66XUp5GLklm4oiZy88yK",
          "balances": {
            "available": null,
            "current": 410,
            "iso_currency_code": "USD",
            "limit": null,
            "unofficial_currency_code": null
          },
          "days_available": 2,
          "historical_balances": [
            {
              "current": 410,
              "date": "2020-06-04",
              "iso_currency_code": "USD",
              "unofficial_currency_code": null
            },
            {
              "current": 410,
              "date": "2020-06-03",
              "iso_currency_code": "USD",
              "unofficial_currency_code": null
            }
          ],
          "mask": "3333",
          "name": "Plaid Credit Card",
          "official_name": "Plaid Diamond 12.5% APR Interest Credit Card",
          "owners": [
            {
              "addresses": [
                {
                  "data": {
                    "city": "Malakoff",
                    "country": "US",
                    "postal_code": "14236",
                    "region": "NY",
                    "street": "2992 Cameron Road"
                  },
                  "primary": true
                },
                {
                  "data": {
                    "city": "San Matias",
                    "country": "US",
                    "postal_code": "93405-2255",
                    "region": "CA",
                    "street": "2493 Leisure Lane"
                  },
                  "primary": false
                }
              ],
              "emails": [
                {
                  "data": "accountholder0@example.com",
                  "primary": true,
                  "type": "primary"
                },
                {
                  "data": "extraordinarily.long.email.username.123456@reallylonghostname.com",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "other"
                }
              ],
              "names": ["Alberta Bobbeth Charleson"],
              "phone_numbers": [
                {
                  "data": "1112223333",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "home"
                },
                {
                  "data": "1112225555",
                  "primary": false,
                  "type": "mobile1"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "ownership_type": null,
          "subtype": "credit card",
          "transactions": [],
          "type": "credit"
        }
      ],
      "date_last_updated": "2020-06-05T22:47:52Z",
      "institution_id": "ins_3",
      "institution_name": "Chase",
      "item_id": "eVBnVMp7zdTJLkRNr33Rs6zr7KNJqBFL9DrE6"
    }
  ],
  "user": {
    "client_user_id": "123456789",
    "email": "accountholder0@example.com",
    "first_name": "Alberta",
    "last_name": "Charleson",
    "middle_name": "Bobbeth",
    "phone_number": "111-222-3333",
    "ssn": "123-45-6789"
  }
},
"request_id": "eYupqX1mZkEuQRx",
"warnings": []
265}

The report field of the above object contains the body of the Asset Report. This field consists of several subfields that contain information about the date and time the Asset Report was created; data submitted about the user; and information about Items, containing the user's historical balances, identity information, and more for each of the user's financial institutions. For a full explanation of the report field and its subfields, consult the API Reference.

Assets webhooks

When you create an Asset Report, Plaid aggregates account balances, account holder identity information, and transaction history for the duration specified. If you attempt to retrieve an Asset Report before the requested data has been collected, you’ll receive a response with the HTTP status code 400 and a Plaid error code of PRODUCT_NOT_READY.

To remove the need for polling, Plaid sends a webhook to the URL you supplied when creating the Asset Report once the Report has been generated. If generation fails, the webhook will indicate why. For examples of webhooks corresponding to successful and unsuccessful Asset Report generation, see the API Reference for Assets webhooks.

Refreshing Asset Reports

Asset Reports can either be created or removed; they cannot be updated. To retrieve up-to-date information about users' transactions and balances, call the /asset_report/refresh endpoint. This endpoint, when used, creates a new Asset Report based on the corresponding existing Asset Report.

Getting an Asset Report for an existing Item

If your user has already connected their account to your application for a different product, you can add Assets to the existing Item.

To do so, in the /link/token/create request described in the Assets flow, populate the access_token field with the access token for the Item, and set the products array to ["assets"]. If the user connected their account less than two years ago, they can bypass the Link credentials pane and complete just the Asset Report consent step. Otherwise, they will be prompted to complete the full Link flow.

Testing Assets

Assets can be tested in Sandbox without any additional permissions. In order to test Assets against live Items in Development or Production, you will need to first request access by submitting a product access request Support ticket explaining your use case.

Plaid provides a GitHub repo with test data for testing Assets in Sandbox, beyond that provided by the default Sandbox user. For more information on configuring custom Sandbox data, see Configuring the custom user account.