[dannyincolor]

Most services I use integrate Plaid. I believe Plaid is just a federated authentication glue that accesses your bank's systems and is granted access to account balances and ACH details (routing/bank account numbers).

It always struck me as an odd product, since I can just plug my ACH info in directly, but it does provide some level of convenience by allowing, say, a roboadviser app to show the embedded balances of my other accounts.

[justusthane]

Plaid is a disaster waiting to happen—they store your banking username and password, and then use them to log in to your online banking on your behalf where they scrape the info they need.

I’m amazed banks put up with it.

[Tyrannosaur]

The Plaid disaster hasn't waited- it's already started. They've already had to settle at least one class action lawsuit for deceptive practices

https://www.plaidsettlement.com/

[astrange]

It'll use app-specific passwords or OAuth with banks that support that, and both of those can be secured well enough.