Payment products
Review and compare payment and account funding solutions
This page provides overviews of Plaid's payment and funding solutions to help you find the right one for your needs.
Auth
Auth is a flexible solution for account and routing number verification that can be used with either a Plaid payments processor partner, or any other processor of your choice, for payments processing. Auth is typically used along with Balance and/or Signal to reduce ACH return risk, and is sometimes used with Identity to reduce account takeover risk.
Transfer
See a live, interactive demo of a Plaid-powered payment flow using Transfer.
Transfer is an end-to-end payment processing solution that performs funds transfers. Transfer incorporates balance checks, so you only need to use Balance or Signal if you wish to build your own custom mitigation rules. Transfer is sometimes used with Identity to reduce account takeover risk.
Auth and Transfer comparison
Auth provides the most flexibility in terms of supported use cases and integration modes, while Transfer provides a single, end-to-end solution for funds transfers.
Auth | Transfer | |
---|---|---|
Summary | An extensible account verification solution that plugs into your payments infrastructure | An out of the box, end-to-end solution for payments |
Verifies account and routing numbers | Yes | Yes |
Supports non-credential-based flows for account verification | Yes | Yes |
Processes ACH transfers | No, requires a processor partner or other processor | Yes |
Provides optional out of the box UI for transfer authorization | No | Yes |
Checks for ACH return risk | When used with Balance and/or Signal | Yes |
Checks for account takeover risk | When used with Identity or Identity Match | When used with Identity or Identity Match |
Supported countries | US, CA, UK, Europe | US |
Supports peer-to-peer and marketplace payments | Yes | No |
Supported payment rails | ACH, Same-Day ACH, RTP, Wire, and international payment schemes | ACH, Same-Day ACH, RTP, Wire (for domestic credit transfers only) |
Billing plans available | Pay-as-you-go or 12-month contract | 12-month contract (Custom only) |
Balance
Balance gets real-time balances to reduce ACH risk and is typically used with Auth. A balance check engine is built in to Transfer, so Balance is only used with Transfer if using your own custom balance thresholds.
Signal
Signal uses ML modeling to predict the risk of ACH returns with the lowest latency and can be used with either Auth or Transfer.
Balance and Signal comparison
Balance is a simple and affordable solution for predicting closed account and insufficient funds returns (over 75% of returns). Signal is a premium, higher-priced solution that provides greater accuracy and much lower latency in assessing return risk to reduce abandon rates during critical flows in the user funnel, such as checkout and account funding. Signal is recommended for more sophisticated risk management teams willing to configure and tune score thresholds, high-risk use cases, or for asynchronous flows where avoiding user abandons during the risk check is critical.
Balance | Signal | |
---|---|---|
Summary | Get real-time balance to minimize the risk of ACH returns | Use ML modeling to quickly predict the risk of ACH returns |
Can predict wide variety of ACH return codes | No, R01 and R02 only | Yes |
Acceptable actions for high-risk transactions | Reject transfer or place hold on funds | Place hold on funds or fall back to Balance |
Supported countries | US, CA, UK, Europe | US |
p50 latency | ~ 3 seconds | ~ 1 second |
p95 latency | ~ 11 seconds | < 2 seconds |
Billing plans available | Pay-as-you-go or 12-month contract | 12-month contract (Custom only) |
Identity
Identity compares account info you hold about your customers to bank account ownership details to reduce account takeover risk. It is commonly used with Auth and Transfer, especially in high risk use cases.
Identity and Identity Match comparison
Identity Match is an optional add-on to Identity that provides greater ease of integration and data minimization. Customers using Identity Match can experience onboarding conversion improvements of 20% or more, without increasing fraud rates, when using Identity Match versus using their own matching algorithms.
Identity | Identity Match | |
---|---|---|
Summary | Get account holder info on file with bank | Compare account holder info with info on file at bank |
Avoids the need to build complex string matching logic | No | Yes |
Minimizes PII stored in system | No | Yes |
Integrates with Identity Verification | No | Yes |
Works with accounts verified via loginless flows such as Same-Day Micro-deposits or Database Insights | No | Supports ~30% of accounts verified by these flows |
Supported countries | US, CA, UK, Europe | US, UK, Europe (CA: Early availability only, contact sales) |
Billing plans available | Pay-as-you-go or 12-month contract | Pay-as-you-go or 12-month contract |
Investments Move
Investments Move (US/CA only) is designed specifically for automating data entry and reducing user friction for brokerage-to-brokerage ACATS and ATON transfers, helping reduce abandon rates and failed transfers for new users moving their assets to your brokerage. Unlike other products on this page, it cannot be used to move money between bank accounts, only to move holdings from one brokerage to another.
Payment Initiation (UK/EU)
Payment Initiation, available only in the UK and EU, enables your users to make real-time payments without manually entering their account number and sort code, or leaving your app.
Virtual Accounts (UK/EU)
Virtual Accounts enables wallet-based features for your payments. Virtual Accounts can be used alongside Payment Initiation to enhance its capabilities with returns, settlement status visibility, and payouts, and can also be used on its own, without Payment Initiation, to add wallet capabilities to apps that accept bank transfers from other sources.
Payment Initiation and Virtual Accounts comparison
Payment Initiation | Virtual Accounts | |
---|---|---|
Summary | Enable end users to make real-time, in-app payments | Manage and track payments made by end users |
Allows end-users to make payments via Link | Yes | No |
Supports issuing payouts | No | Yes |
Supports issuing returns | No | Yes, only if used with Payment Initiation |
Provides payment status updates | Yes | Yes, only if used with Payment Initiation |
Indicates whether a payment has settled | No | Yes, only if used with Payment Initiation |
Supported countries | UK and Europe | UK and Europe |
Supports non-Eurozone local payments | Yes | Yes |
Billing plans available | 12-month contract (Custom only) | 12-month contract (Custom only) |