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Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

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Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#131

Post by jaxn »

chatmasta wrote: post #29

Plaid is a great idea, but the implementation worries me. My understanding is that, for most banks, you give Plaid your username and password, and Plaid scrapers on their servers log into your online banking account. Even worse, Plaid obfuscates this behavior from users by replicating their banks login window and making it appear that you are logging directly into your bank. I'm not sure how to feel about this, becau…

I used plaid as a payment option at my SaaS company. Yes, it is a great idea, but the implementation is "meh".

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#132

Post by ceejayoz »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #130
ceejayoz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a silly framing. The developer is purchasing the technological infrastructure to deliver the data a single specific user has opted to provide to them. Claiming the developer is a third party is like claiming I'm a third party when I order off Amazon, and that the USPS is the actual customer.

When you enter into a transaction using your bank, someone who is not a party to that transaction can see it, and they pay for that access. Under any framing, that's a third party paying for access to your transaction data. The user hasn't opted-in if the co-founder of the company is telling people it doesn't happen. It's only opt-in if the user knows it's happening and agrees to it.

If I'm using a financial app, and it pops up with a "App Foo wants to use Plaid to link to your bank", and I go in and enter my banking credentials into that dialog... you're arguing that I have no idea what I'm doing and aren't consenting to anything? Huh?

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#133

Post by ghostly_s »

astura wrote: post #99
siamakfr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. They try and imitate your bank's branding on the log in page and do not make any mention of Plaid. For example, when setting up Venmo, I thought I was logging into something my bank had created.

I mean, the only reason I even know what Plaid is is because the services I've used advertise they are using Plaid, for example, Drop: https://imgur.com/a/l4PM6QG I remember seeing it on Citibank too. You're still sharing your bank account information with someone else. Even if it's your bank's API or whatever, "something my bank created" could be "something my bank had hired an external company to create," or even "…

> If you want to minimize sharing bank account information "for privacy" then you don't give your bank account information to anyone.

That's the whole point. You don't know you're giving your account information to anyone. I use Venmo and had no idea they relied on this technique until reading your comment.

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#134

Post by ceejayoz »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #82

The thought of giving any of my passwords to a 3rd party is problematic ... but my banking password ? This is an issue. Also a risk, because any bank could simply shut this down pretty quickly and if one does it, the others could follow. The first 3rd party that messes up, with the whiff of a scandal ... and this is going to dissapear, or rather, the banks may decided that they'll do some API, but not for free. I'm w…

> Also a risk, because any bank could simply shut this down pretty quickly and if one does it, the others could follow.

I mean, Mint's been doing it for twelve years, and they're hitting thousands of banks. They're definitely on the major banks' radar by now.

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#135

Post by ceejayoz »

ivalm wrote: post #127
siamakfr wrote: post #40

Is the gist of this company logging into a bank's web service using a user's credentials and scraping their account data and exposing that data via APIs to other developers? I thought they actually integrated with the banks on the backend, but if this is all they do, I'm not comfortable using any product that snoops my bank info without any accountability.

Yup, I use Mint, occasionally, but now I am rethinking it. I really thought it was integrated with the bank's api.

It is, in some cases. Depends on the bank.

Capital One allows creation of read-only credentials explicitly for stuff like Mint, too.

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#136

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #132
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you enter into a transaction using your bank, someone who is not a party to that transaction can see it, and they pay for that access. Under any framing, that's a third party paying for access to your transaction data. The user hasn't opted-in if the co-founder of the company is telling people it doesn't happen. It's only opt-in if the user knows it's happening and agrees to it.

If I'm using a financial app, and it pops up with a "App Foo wants to use Plaid to link to your bank", and I go in and enter my banking credentials into that dialog... you're arguing that I have no idea what I'm doing and aren't consenting to anything? Huh?

If you're so confident, go survey Plaid users and find what percentage are aware that Plaid makes money selling their financial transaction history to developers.

Then ask yourself why the founding team goes around and tells people they don't do that.

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#137

Post by sam0x17 »

chatmasta wrote: post #29

Plaid is a great idea, but the implementation worries me. My understanding is that, for most banks, you give Plaid your username and password, and Plaid scrapers on their servers log into your online banking account. Even worse, Plaid obfuscates this behavior from users by replicating their banks login window and making it appear that you are logging directly into your bank. I'm not sure how to feel about this, becau…

I am a user of several Plaid-powered apps, and I will say that most of my banks eventually drop out and need me to reactivate the connection (usually because a security question is required or something like that). With an API, depending on the implementation, this may never happen, so in an odd sort of way it is more secure in that you definitely won't forget about it and have it running for years. I have to actively try to keep everything activated and running.

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#138

Post by jondubois »

ativzzz wrote: post #97
cryptica wrote: post #81

I remember I spoke with both the CEO and CTO over Skype several years ago. They actively reached out to me because of an open source project I created and they wanted to recruit me. They made quite an impression on me but I wasn't prepared to move to the US back then. Damn. Missed opportunity. Obviously they were very proactive in reaching out to the developers that they wanted rather than just passively waiting for…

What project were you working on?

SocketCluster. A WebSocket framework for NodeJS. I'm still working on it actually.

Re: Fintech startup Plaid raises $250M at a $2.65B valuation

#140

Post by ceejayoz »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #136
ceejayoz wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm using a financial app, and it pops up with a "App Foo wants to use Plaid to link to your bank", and I go in and enter my banking credentials into that dialog... you're arguing that I have no idea what I'm doing and aren't consenting to anything? Huh?

If you're so confident, go survey Plaid users and find what percentage are aware that Plaid makes money selling their financial transaction history to developers. Then ask yourself why the founding team goes around and tells people they don't do that.

That'd be a very misleading survey question, as it heavily implies they're selling it to other developers the user didn't engage with at all.

"Are you aware that connecting app Foo to your bank account gives app Foo access to your transactions?" is likely to be met with a resounding "no shit, that's the point..."

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