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Stripe Financial Connections

stripe.com

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Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#41

Post by vageli »

chrisseaton wrote: post #39
zinekeller wrote: post #4

Question: are US banking really this dysfunctional? Where I'm from, a bank consortium already provided unified login services (while banks still have their own websites, as a merchant you only need to integrate the consortium-provided APIs rather than using Plaid) simplifying things.

In the US your public bank account number is effectively a password to debit your account! There’s literally no authorisation at all!

> In the US your public bank account number is effectively a password to debit your account! There’s literally no authorisation at all!

Don't you also need the routing number? How does this differ in other countries or anywhere that checks are used?

Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#42

Post by nitsky »

kadomony wrote: post #12
nitsky wrote: post #3

Is this good news or bad news for Plaid?

Competition is healthy. Whether it's good or bad, we'll see. No one can divine that, but I get the sense that Plaid's product team is a bit worried right now.

I wonder why it took so many years for Stripe to start competing in this area.

Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#43

Post by chrisseaton »

vageli wrote: post #41
chrisseaton wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US your public bank account number is effectively a password to debit your account! There’s literally no authorisation at all!

> In the US your public bank account number is effectively a password to debit your account! There’s literally no authorisation at all! Don't you also need the routing number? How does this differ in other countries or anywhere that checks are used?

Yes the public account number and routing number. Which are printed on my card, statements, might be read out loud, etc.

My bank in the UK would not let you debit my account with just the numbers. I’d need to authorise it.

How do you stop people debiting your account with whatever they want?

Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#45

Post by emrekzd »

zachperret wrote: post #29
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #10

If Stripe can leverage their banking relationships to leapfrog Plaid by integrating directly with bank's APIs instead of doing screen scraping... that would be massive! It seems like Plaid's biggest weakness is the flakiness of their connections, which creates so much frustration/churn downstream. Plaid's other weakness is their opaque, enterprise-style pricing, which is seems like Stripe is doing away with. Hopefull…

Plaid founder here. Stripe does not integrate with any bank API's directly (AFAICT). They wrap two aggregators, MX and Finicity to build this product. (Also, not sure what MX products they are using, but MX itself is an aggregator of aggregators, including others such as Yodlee.) On pricing, Stripe's listed rates are 30-200% higher than Plaid rates (perhaps due to high vendor costs). That said, if anyone does have fe…

Unlike Plaid, Finicity and Yodlee have direct integrations with some banks. Example: Silicon Valley Bank has direct integration with Finicity. SVB through Plaid breaks quickly (because they require some weird 2fa policy).

Let me know if I'm missing something but if Stripe is A) providing reliable connection to common banks Plaid misses and B) saving it's users from all the headaches of integrating with old school services like Finicity/Yodlee, then charging a premium sounds like fair game.

Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#46

Post by [deleted] »

zachperret wrote: post #29
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #10

If Stripe can leverage their banking relationships to leapfrog Plaid by integrating directly with bank's APIs instead of doing screen scraping... that would be massive! It seems like Plaid's biggest weakness is the flakiness of their connections, which creates so much frustration/churn downstream. Plaid's other weakness is their opaque, enterprise-style pricing, which is seems like Stripe is doing away with. Hopefull…

Plaid founder here. Stripe does not integrate with any bank API's directly (AFAICT). They wrap two aggregators, MX and Finicity to build this product. (Also, not sure what MX products they are using, but MX itself is an aggregator of aggregators, including others such as Yodlee.) On pricing, Stripe's listed rates are 30-200% higher than Plaid rates (perhaps due to high vendor costs). That said, if anyone does have fe…

[deleted]

Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#47

Post by aarohmankad »

gonehome wrote: post #35
zachperret wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed! Plaid is integrated with ~every bank that has an API, and in many cases we've actually helped the banks build API's themselves.

Do you know why Fidelity Investments plaid connection doesn’t work most of the time? It’s something I hit often and have to do the old microdeposit thing (if I can even figure out how to trick the service into allowing me to do that at all). Does fidelity just have some sort of broken setup?

Not sure when you were testing, but we do call out some instability on the Fidelity Institution Status page in the Developer Dashboard.

> To maintain system stability, Fidelity currently limits access during high-volume windows. As a result, please expect unavailability between 9-10:30am and 3-4:30pm ET. We recommend end users link Fidelity accounts between 5pm - 9am ET.

Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#48

Post by xur17 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #43
vageli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US your public bank account number is effectively a password to debit your account! There’s literally no authorisation at all! Don't you also need the routing number? How does this differ in other countries or anywhere that checks are used?

Yes the public account number and routing number. Which are printed on my card, statements, might be read out loud, etc. My bank in the UK would not let you debit my account with just the numbers. I’d need to authorise it. How do you stop people debiting your account with whatever they want?

> How do you stop people debiting your account with whatever they want?

Short answer: you don't. Long answer: robust "fraud" controls. It's a shit-show.

Re: Stripe Financial Connections

#49

Post by sicromoft »

zachperret wrote: post #29
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #10

If Stripe can leverage their banking relationships to leapfrog Plaid by integrating directly with bank's APIs instead of doing screen scraping... that would be massive! It seems like Plaid's biggest weakness is the flakiness of their connections, which creates so much frustration/churn downstream. Plaid's other weakness is their opaque, enterprise-style pricing, which is seems like Stripe is doing away with. Hopefull…

Plaid founder here. Stripe does not integrate with any bank API's directly (AFAICT). They wrap two aggregators, MX and Finicity to build this product. (Also, not sure what MX products they are using, but MX itself is an aggregator of aggregators, including others such as Yodlee.) On pricing, Stripe's listed rates are 30-200% higher than Plaid rates (perhaps due to high vendor costs). That said, if anyone does have fe…

Plaid doesn't have publicly listed pricing at all. Might as well be infinite.

If a startup can use Stripe, who they're already integrating with, or integrate with a new provider with hidden pricing that requires them to contact a sales person, I wonder who they're going to choose. Good luck.

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