SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) announced today it has entered into a data exchange agreement with Plaid, a leading data platform. As a result, Wells Fargo customers will be able to conveniently and more securely share their financial data with the digital financial tools and services Plaid supports using an application-programming interface (API).
Many Wells Fargo customers access their financial data through Plaid to use apps that help them lead healthier financial lives. With this agreement, Wells Fargo customers will have greater control over the bank account information they share with Plaid-supported apps, including the ability to turn on or off data sharing through Wells Fargo’s Control Tower SM digital experience. Available in the Wells Fargo Mobile® Banking app and online banking, Control Tower helps consumer and small business customers better manage their increasingly complex online financial lives by providing a single view of their Wells Fargo digital financial footprint.
“We want to be where our customers are,” said Ben Soccorsy, head of digital payments for Wells Fargo Virtual Channels. “And if customers want to share their Wells Fargo account information with a Plaid-supported app to help them better manage their finances, we want to enable them to do so seamlessly and more securely. Our agreement with Plaid, a leading data platform for many financial management apps, will help our customers share their financial data with these apps with greater control and transparency.”
Wells Fargo will launch the experience with select Plaid customers within a year.
“It is critical that consumers have more secure and seamless access to their own financial data to power their modern financial lives,” said Sima Gandhi, head of business development and strategy at Plaid, “and our collaboration with Wells Fargo will ensure that our mutual customers can enjoy the best of fintech innovation for years to come. We’re particularly excited by Wells Fargo’s industry-leading approach to enhancing user control and transparency by ensuring compatibility between the Plaid platform and Wells Fargo’s Control Tower. Centered on trust and collaboration, the partnership between Plaid and Wells Fargo represents how traditional banking services and technology companies can innovate together.”
The API used in the agreement will utilize a more secure, tokenized “handshake” between the companies’ servers through which customers’ financial data will be shared. Once integrated, the API will allow customers to share their financial data, while also maintaining the privacy of their user credentials. The enrollment process will be easy and designed to work seamlessly within Plaid-supported apps’ user experiences.
Plaid will access Wells Fargo’s data exchange API on Wells Fargo’s Gateway Channel, the bank’s open API channel that allows commercial and corporate banking customers to integrate Wells Fargo products, services and information into their own digital environments. The data exchange API is aligned with the Financial Data Exchange standard and Plaid’s data sharing principles. Financial Data Exchange is a nonprofit dedicated to unifying the financial industry around a common, interoperable, royalty-free standard for more secure and convenient consumer and business access to their financial data.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 7,600 locations, more than 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 32 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 263,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 29 on Fortune’s 2019 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.
About Plaid
Founded in 2012, Plaid empowers innovators with access to the world’s financial data network. By creating a secure and seamless way for consumers to access their financial data, Plaid makes it easy for people to use digital tools and services that help them lead healthier financial lives. One in four consumers with a U.S. bank account have used Plaid to access their financial data, and 80% of the biggest fintech companies rely on Plaid to operate. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and operates in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.