Add Identity to your app

Use Identity to verify user data

In this guide, we'll start from scratch and walk through how to use Identity to retrieve identity data. If you are already familiar with using Plaid and are set up to make calls to the Plaid API, you can skip ahead to Fetching identity data.

Get Plaid API keys

If you don't already have one, you'll need to create a Plaid developer account. After creating your account, you can find your API keys under the Team Settings menu on the Plaid developer dashboard.

Install Plaid libraries

You can use our official libraries to connect to the Plaid API from your application:

Terminal
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# Install via npm
npm install --save plaid

Create an Item in Link

Plaid Link is a drop-in module that provides a secure, elegant authentication flow for each institution that Plaid supports. Link makes it secure and easy for users to connect their bank accounts to Plaid. Note that these instructions cover Link on the web. For instructions on using Link within mobile apps, see the Link documentation.

Using Link, we will create a Plaid Item, which is a Plaid term for a login at a financial institution. An Item is not the same as a financial institution account, although every account will be associated with an Item. For example, if a user has one login at their bank that allows them to access both their checking account and their savings account, a single Item would be associated with both of those accounts. If you want to customize Link's look and feel, you can do so from the Dashboard.

Before initializing Link, you will need to create a new link_token on the server side of your application. A link_token is a short-lived, one-time use token that is used to authenticate your app with Link. You can create one using the /link/token/create endpoint. Then, on the client side of your application, you'll need to initialize Link with the link_token that you just created.

In the code samples below, you will need to replace PLAID_CLIENT_ID and PLAID_SECRET with your own keys, which you can obtain from the Dashboard.

Create a link_token

server.js
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// Using Express
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
app.use(express.json());
const plaid = require('plaid');
const client = new plaid.Client({
  clientID: process.env.PLAID_CLIENT_ID,
  secret: process.env.PLAID_SECRET,
  env: plaid.environments.sandbox,
});
app.post('/create_link_token', async (request, response) => {
  try {
    // Get the client_user_id by searching for the current user
    const user = await User.find(...);
    const clientUserId = user.id;
    // Create the link_token with all of your configurations
    const tokenResponse = await client.createLinkToken({
      user: {
        client_user_id: clientUserId,
      },
      client_name: 'Plaid Test App',
      products: ["identity"],
      country_codes: ['US'],
      language: 'en',
      webhook: 'https://webhook.sample.com',
    });
    response.json(tokenResponse);
  } catch (e) {
    // Display error on client
    return response.send({ error: e.message });
  }
});

Install Link dependency

index.html
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<head>
  <title>Connect a bank</title>
  <script src="https://cdn.plaid.com/link/v2/stable/link-initialize.js"></script>
</head>

Configure the client-side Link handler

app.js
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const linkHandler = Plaid.create({
  token: (await $.post('/create_link_token')).link_token,
  onSuccess: (public_token, metadata) => {
    // Send the public_token to your app server.
    $.post('/exchange_public_token', {
      public_token: public_token,
    });
  },
  onExit: (err, metadata) => {
    // Optionally capture when your user exited the Link flow.
    // Storing this information can be helpful for support.
  },
  onEvent: (eventName, metadata) => {
    // Optionally capture Link flow events, streamed through
    // this callback as your users connect an Item to Plaid.
  },
});
linkHandler.open();

Get a persistent access_token

Next, on the server side, we need to exchange our public_token for an access_token and item_id. The access_token will allow us to make authenticated calls to the Plaid API. Doing so is as easy as calling the /item/public_token/exchange endpoint from our server-side handler. We'll use the client library we configured earlier to make the API call.

Save the access_token and item_id in a secure datastore, as they’re used to access Item data and identify webhooks, respectively. The access_token will remain valid unless you actively chose to expire it via rotation or remove the corresponding Item via /item/remove. The access_token should be stored securely, and never in client-side code. A public_token is a one-time use token with a lifetime of 30 minutes, so there is no need to store it.

server.js
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// Using Express
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
app.use(express.json());
const plaid = require('plaid');
const client = new plaid.Client({
  clientID: process.env.PLAID_CLIENT_ID,
  secret: process.env.PLAID_SECRET,
  env: plaid.environments.sandbox,
});
app.post('/exchange_public_token', async (request, response) => {
  try {
    const publicToken = request.body.public_token;
    // Exchange the client-side public_token for a server access_token
    const tokenResponse = await client.exchangePublicToken(publicToken);
    // Save the access_token and item_id to a persistent database
    const accessToken = tokenResponse.access_token;
    const itemId = tokenResponse.item_id;
  } catch (e) {
    // Display error on client
    return response.send({ error: e.message });
  }
});

Fetching Identity data

Now that the authentication step is out of the way, we can begin using authenticated endpoints from the Plaid API. Once you've retrieved identity data for an account, you can then use it to collect end-user contact information or evaluate whether they may constitute a fraud risk. For more detailed information on the schema for account information returned by /identity/get, see the Identity Reference.

Identity sample request
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// Pull Identity data for an Item
const response = await client.getIdentity(accessToken).catch((err) => {
  // handle error
});
const identities = response.accounts.flatMap((account) => account.owners);

Example response data is below.

Identity sample data
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{
  "accounts": [
    {
      "account_id": "BxBXxLj1m4HMXBm9WZZmCWVbPjX16EHwv99vp",
      "balances": {
        "available": 100,
        "current": 110,
        "iso_currency_code": "USD",
        "limit": null,
        "unofficial_currency_code": null
      },
      "mask": "0000",
      "name": "Plaid Checking",
      "official_name": "Plaid Gold Standard 0% Interest Checking",
      "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": "accountholder1@example.com",
              "primary": false,
              "type": "secondary"
            }
          ],
          "names": ["Alberta Bobbeth Charleson"],
          "phone_numbers": [
            {
              "data": "1112223333",
              "primary": false,
              "type": "home"
            },
            {
              "data": "1112224444",
              "primary": false,
              "type": "work"
            },
            {
              "data": "1112225555",
              "primary": false,
              "type": "mobile1"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "subtype": "checking",
      "type": "depository"
    }
  ],
  "item": {
    "available_products": ["balance", "credit_details", "investments"],
    "billed_products": [
      "assets",
      "auth",
      "identity",
      "liabilities",
      "transactions"
    ],
    "consent_expiration_time": null,
    "error": null,
    "institution_id": "ins_3",
    "item_id": "eVBnVMp7zdTJLkRNr33Rs6zr7KNJqBFL9DrE6",
    "webhook": "https://www.genericwebhookurl.com/webhook"
  },
  "request_id": "3nARps6TOYtbACO"
}