Plaid and Okta partner to deliver seamless access for open finance

By Gloria Methri

FinTech Plaid has teamed up with independent identity provider Okta, to help banks and financial institutions adopt OAuth and APIs for exchanging data with third parties. The partnership provides the financial services ecosystem with a secure way to accelerate its open finance initiatives and deliver seamless connectivity for consumers.

OAuth is an industry-standard protocol for authorization that gives users more control over how their data is shared. These methods do not require passwords to be exchanged between parties, creating more secure experiences for consumers.

Customers can integrate Plaid with Okta Customer Identity Cloud (powered by Auth0) to streamline and secure authentication, authorization, and aggregation of shared data.

The partnership comes at a time when the financial services industry is moving quickly towards OAuth adoption – a requirement for all implementations supported by the Financial Data Exchange (FDX).

“Plaid is committed to unlocking financial freedom for everyone,” said Aly Yarris, Financial Access Partnerships at Plaid. “We are excited to partner with Okta to help financial services companies adopt OAuth integrations while advancing API-based data connectivity solutions that enable consumers to have greater transparency, security, and control over their own data. This is a win-win for consumers who expect privacy and choice in the ways they manage their financial accounts for things like payments, budgeting, and investing.”

“More than 17,000 organizations trust Okta to protect the identities of their customers and workforces,” said Maureen Little, Vice President of Technology Partnerships at Okta. “With Okta’s independent and neutral platform, financial services companies can embrace identity best practices regardless of their technology stack and pass the security and experience benefits onto their consumers. We are thrilled to partner with Plaid to elevate the importance of identity across the financial services ecosystem.”