Introduction to the returning user experience

The returning user experience (RUX) simplifies onboarding for users who have already connected a financial account with Plaid. If your application verifies the user’s phone number in your onboarding flow (e.g. with a one-time code) before the user enters Plaid Link, you may enable the returning user experience.

There are two flows that a returning user could encounter, depending on the Plaid product(s) your application uses. Both of these flows present the returning user with the institutions they have previously connected, which helps to streamline the institution selection process.

The pre-matched RUX flow is available for all Plaid products and is available to all Plaid developers by default. This flow requires the user to only enter their password for a given financial institution. To enable this flow, provide a verified user.phone_number and a user.phone_number_verified_time for the end user when calling /link/token/create.

The pre-authenticated RUX flow is available for Transactions, Assets, Investments, and Liabilities. This flow requires the user to enter a one-time passcode that’s sent to their mobile device. To enable this flow for a given user, provide a verified user.phone_number, a user.phone_number_verified_time (if this timestamp is not available, you may use 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z), and a user.email_address (the email address does not need to be verified) for the end user when calling /link/token/create. You will also need to contact your Plaid Account Manager to be enabled for this flow.

Note that not all institutions are compatible with pre-authenticated RUX. For more details, contact your Plaid Account Manager.

Real email addresses and phone numbers do not work in the Sandbox. Instead, the Sandbox has been seeded with a test user whose phone number and email address may be used to trigger a returning user flow. This user has the following information:

1{
2  "legal_name": "John Doe",
3  "phone_number": "+1 415 555 0123",
4  "phone_number_verified_time": "2020-01-01T00:00:00Z",
5  "email_address": "example@plaid.com"
6}

The valid OTP code sent to this user is always 123456.

When testing pre-authenticated RUX, you should make sure to use a compatible institution. Examples of compatible institutions suitable for Sandbox testing include Chime, Regions Bank, Fidelity, and Vanguard.

When measuring conversion, RUX flows can be distinguished by their emitting the MATCHED_SELECT_INSTITUTION and MATCHED_SELECT_VERIFY_METHOD events. MATCHED_SELECT_VERIFY_METHOD is omitted only by RUX flows; MATCHED_SELECT_INSTITUTION is used during RUX flows or if a routing_number parameter was supplied to /link/token/create. If you are both using RUX and providing a routing_number and need to distinguish between the two situations, check the metadata.match_reason to ensure that the reason is returning_user. For more details, see Link SDK documentation. For more information on tracking Link conversion in general, see Improving Link conversion.