About the things that some applications bind to credit cards or bank accounts principle, whether it is safe, how to unbi...

There are many apps that need to be connected to your credit card or bank account in order to work properly. For example, some cashback applications can automatically get cashback when you swipe your card, or other banking-related services, such as Privacy, need to be connected to Checking. So how do these apps connect to their own bank or credit card, what information can they see, whether it is safe, and how to unbind it?

basic introduction

If some applications need to use your transaction information or need to transfer money, the operation of connecting the bank account will appear, and the interface is almost the same (as shown in the figure below). The first picture will usually say the name of the current application (label 1, here is Privacy.com ) and the name of the platform that provides the connection (label 2, here is Plaid), and then there will be a long list of banks to choose from, you need to Use your own online banking account password to log in for authorization.

The above picture is the interface of Privacy.com connecting Checking through Plaid

In fact, the reason why the interfaces are similar is that there are only a few back-end platforms that provide connections, such as Plaid, Empyr, Finicity, etc., and general applications only need to be connected.

How it works

Like Plaid, Empyr, Finicity, these are some large financial service companies (we call them back-end companies below), they have a cooperative relationship with banks, and data sharing can be achieved through the bank’s program interface (in fact, when we open an account or credit card) have signed a sharing agreement…). There are many application scenarios for this data, such as advertising push, personalization, ACH transfer, etc.

There are not many companies that can provide these services, and they also ensure the security of data. Plaid was acquired by Visa not long ago ( news link ). Here are some common backend companies used by applications (an application may use multiple backend companies):

The picture below is a screenshot of a customer from the official websites of Empyr and Plaid. You can see that many well-known products are also using their services, and even some banking systems, such as Amex, SoFi, etc.:

Of course, in addition to these three, there are other companies, we will not list them all here, these three can be said to be the three with the highest utilization rate.

After the connection, the application itself cannot obtain the account and password of the bank login, but obtains the interface and authorization provided by the back-end company. The data that can be obtained through the interface includes but is not limited to:

• Account balance
• Account number
• Account transactions

For example, Dosh uses transaction data to determine whether we have made purchases at the designated merchants, how much has been consumed, and whether there are subsequent returns and other information.

The back-end company will not record our bank login account and password, but will obtain the bank’s data interface and authorization after authentication. This data range may be wider and varies from bank to bank.

How to unbind

Here is the ultimate killer for unbinding, which is applicable to most banks: change the login password of the bank. After changing the password, the previous authorization will be invalid under normal circumstances, and you need to re-authorize (just like many websites log out after changing the password, you must log in again). Of course, this is too simple and violent, which will cause many normal applications to be unusable and require re-authorization. If you just unbind an application, you can take a look at the following method.

First of all, you need to see if the application itself has an option to unbind, and if so, you can directly unbind it.

If the unbinding option is not provided in the bound application, you can go directly to the back-end company to unbind. For example , the unbinding address of Plaid is https://my.plaid.com/ , and you can log in to see all your bindings through Plaid. Services:

Click Apply and select Disconnect.

There are also some applications, such as Mint (belonging to Intuit), which use their own protocols and directly connect with the bank. In this case, you need to unbind them in the security settings of your own bank. The settings of each bank are different. For example, Bank of America is called “Third-party Site Access” in the security settings. Find the corresponding application and click Revoke:

If you can’t find where this option is, you can ask your bank’s customer service.

That’s all for today, I hope this article is helpful to you, and we will keep it updated if there are any updates.

source https://gift.ausacn.com/index.php/2022/01/11/about-the-things-that-some-applications-bind-to-credit-cards-or-bank-accounts-principle-whether-it-is-safe-how-to-unbind-etc/