Visa Buys Plaid

#1

Post by coloneltcb » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 8:58 PM UTC

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#2

Post by coachtrotz » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:06 PM UTC

Plaid is an incredible company and provides a valuable service to their tech partners. That said, their data collection practices are scary. They allow any developer using their software to swallow all of a users banking data - I would love to know how they police bad actors.

(Source: https://plaid.com/legal/#privacy-statement)

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#3

Post by brunoTbear » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

Will be interesting to see the terms for the acquisition and see if Mary Meeker's last investment for KP was a winner or not!

I'm cautiously optimistic for a good outcome for the Plaid folks here: last round was two years ago for $250M. Could they have been suffering $10M/month losses and are running out of money? Could be.

No offense to Visa, but I don't think of them as the most innovative organization or one that is a sign of a "good outcome" for a company getting acquired. I can't think of a good exit to Visa, but I am open to being wrong on that one.

Disclosures: worked at Stripe; dealt altogether more than I would have liked with Visa. Have no knowledge of Plaid's particulars.

Edit: Visa and Mastercard were strategic investors in the C round. Curious what the competitive dynamics were that led to Visa grabbing the acquisition instead of MC. https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/16/plaid-announces-strategic-...

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#4

Post by throwaway13000 » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

So, pertinent question. I want to move my account to a bank which gives me an API so I don't have to deal with Plaid or Mint. I.e. I want data privacy. I want to build a personal dashboard of where my money is going.

Any suggestions?

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#5

Post by ErikAugust » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

throwaway13000 wrote: post #4

So, pertinent question. I want to move my account to a bank which gives me an API so I don't have to deal with Plaid or Mint. I.e. I want data privacy. I want to build a personal dashboard of where my money is going. Any suggestions?

Yeah, I'll second this. I figure we're talking headless browser scraping of online banking portals.

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#6

Post by apazzolini » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

throwaway13000 wrote: post #4

So, pertinent question. I want to move my account to a bank which gives me an API so I don't have to deal with Plaid or Mint. I.e. I want data privacy. I want to build a personal dashboard of where my money is going. Any suggestions?

You could try Actual [1], which stores your data locally. It does however go through Plaid. Would be interesting if there was an alternative option to screenscrape your online banking portal.

[1] https://actualbudget.com/

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#7

Post by jngreenlee » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

brunoTbear wrote: post #3

Will be interesting to see the terms for the acquisition and see if Mary Meeker's last investment for KP was a winner or not! I'm cautiously optimistic for a good outcome for the Plaid folks here: last round was two years ago for $250M. Could they have been suffering $10M/month losses and are running out of money? Could be. No offense to Visa, but I don't think of them as the most innovative organization or one that…

>competitive dynamics were that led to Visa grabbing the acquisition instead of MC

Quite possibly got overbid in that case, which would be a good exit. MC is no slouch in this space.

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#8

Post by sgt » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

At least we'll be able to say... They've gone into plaid!

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#9

Post by findjashua » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

throwaway13000 wrote: post #4

So, pertinent question. I want to move my account to a bank which gives me an API so I don't have to deal with Plaid or Mint. I.e. I want data privacy. I want to build a personal dashboard of where my money is going. Any suggestions?

the only way atm would be to sign up for email notifications for any transactions, and parse the emails to get relevant data

there are a few issues though:

1. some banks only send notifications for transactions that are over a certain amount (eg BofA is >$25)

2. the merchant name is arbitrarily cut-off (based on char length), so you don't really get reliable merchant info

Re: Visa Buys Plaid

#10

Post by bpicolo » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

throwaway13000 wrote: post #4

So, pertinent question. I want to move my account to a bank which gives me an API so I don't have to deal with Plaid or Mint. I.e. I want data privacy. I want to build a personal dashboard of where my money is going. Any suggestions?

I believe https://monzo.com/ is aiming for this

Developer docs: https://docs.monzo.com/

I'm not currently aware of a US bank equivalent