Banking regulators should mandate open banking APIs and default-private, non-sellable transaction data. The fact that they don't means that they don't work for us, government has been turned into a tool to enable and encourage rent-seeking. The "deregulation" obsession in this country is turning us all into modern feudal serfs, we have no option but to toil in our Lords' properties without recourse.
Visa Buys Plaid
71–80 of 333 posts
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#72As a former Plaid employee with options that vested after I was shitcanned last year, this is some pretty welcome news.
You’re anon, and I was always curious in terms of $$$ how much did you end up with? At what stage did you join and how many options did you get? Very rare to find real data online about this
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#73So, 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?
What about OCR'ing (or extracting from an electronic PDF) your bank statement each month and then parsing the data into your desired format? You could add tags, metadata, etc. as well. I'm thinking of something where you download your statement (usually available in PDF form) and then drag it to a web interface where it then gets OCR'd and processed. A bit more manual, but the upside is you're not leaking your creds…
Every bank I use provides _some_ sort of structured data export (at the very least a csv, and in most cases a more finance-specific format (OFX, etc). I'm not talking "modern" banks here, either (Ironically, the most modern bank I use, Aspiration, only provides exports in a non-standard csv format)
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#74i always hope that new exciting companies will work towards a sustainable business model that can exist without a buyout from some mega. i understand that its difficult to start a business, much less a sustainable one, but its sad to see such promising companies grow into a pitch instead of a business. maybe its a good thing i didn't get hired for their SLC office, because i would have quit over this.
Out of curiousity, why would this acquisition be a reason to quit?
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Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#75Plaid?
Edit: I guess I’ll look up their homepage, and try to scroll through the marketing speak to figure it out. Seems like it would be nice if someone in the know could just tell us.
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have been interested in the idea of and open API for banking (one which supports Canadian banks would be preferable, as I am Canadian), and I have had a few ideas for application's to implement with Plaid. I keep reading feedback about Plaid on HN similar to yours though that make me less confident in the product.
Keep in mind every pull for transactions will cost money so you need to charge enough per month to cover those costs. It’s closer to $1 than a penny like most APIs.
Yikes, $1 per transaction pull? Wonder if there's a way to only pull transactions when a charge for a specific vendor comes across.
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#77As a former Plaid employee with options that vested after I was shitcanned last year, this is some pretty welcome news.
Congratulations on your lucrative shitcanning!
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#78Have to say I'm not a fan of Plaid at all. Dark patterns galore. Absolutely no indication when you go through a Plaid flow that you're likely giving away much more than just the bare minimum account numbers to push money in/out of your bank account. Often, you're also giving away transaction data, identity, real-time balance, etc. There's no way to know prior to linking your account. I had high hopes that would have…
I agree with you. When I used their cc statement 'API' about a year ago there were less than 5% of my transactions showing up -- why? because Chase added a promotion to their statement and Plaid's scraper wasn't expecting it
Have to imagine my statements hold more value than their scraping algo
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is pertinent verbiage from the Plaid Privacy Statement. Information we collect from your financial accounts. The information we receive from the financial product and service providers that maintain your financial accounts varies depending on the specific Plaid services developers use to power their applications, as well as the information made available by those providers. But, in general, we collect the follow…
I never used Plaid, but it reads like information used in typical bank application for credit. Why would anyone willingly share this much without get something major in return? Does Plaid bank the underbanked? I am not sure what their appeal is.
Marketing dollars and partnerships can get a company a LONG way...
Re: Visa Buys Plaid
#80Visa invested in their Series C[0], so it seems unusual that they'd also acquire the company (why not acquire it back then?). Any ideas why this might have happened? Past examples? [0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/plaid#section-fundin...
> so it seems unusual that they'd also acquire the company (why not acquire it back then?) Not unusual at all. Pretty typical for CVC in fact. Couple of factors: 1. CVC (Corporate Venture Capital) typically tries to invest in similar markets of companies that either are competitive or pseduo-competitive (think of it as a hedge). For example, this would be like PayPal investing in Venmo. 2. It's cheaper in the long ru…
Great points (as well as the other comments).
I'm curious to learn more about strategy here since Paul Graham says there probably aren't more Googles because companies are acquired too soon. Facebook is famous for the Yahoo! offer. Stripe would have been a great acquisition (if they would have accepted any).