Plaid — Plaid is a US fintech infrastructure company that provides APIs for connecting bank accounts (account aggregation, ACH authorisation, balance and transaction data) and identity verification (Plaid IDV — government ID + selfie + liveness).
Plaid sits between a fintech app and the user's bank. The fintech requests access; Plaid mediates the OAuth-style consent flow; the user logs in to their bank inside the Plaid Link widget; access tokens flow back to the fintech.
Plaid IDV (formerly Cognito) handles KYC: government ID image capture, selfie + liveness check, name/DOB/SSN cross-reference. Used by most US fintechs in 2026.
Kronos uses Plaid Link for bank-account linking (powering pay-advance underwriting, ACH transfers, deposit tracking) and Plaid IDV for identity verification at signup. Consent screen required before any IDV session is created (MEGA_AUDIT P2).
Yes. Plaid uses bank-level encryption, never transmits passwords to the fintech, and is itself a regulated data aggregator.
Whatever you authorise during the Link flow — typically account balance, account/routing number, and transaction history for the linked accounts.