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Tangerine Add external accounts with Plaid
February 2, 2023
10:12 am
Warwick111
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I was about to change one of my 3 linked external accounts and found out that Tangerine has now added the option to add external accounts with Plaid. I wish it increases the limit on the direct link accounts without going thru Plaid but this is still an option for people who need/want more than 3 linked accounts.

February 2, 2023
10:19 am
HermanH
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Note familiar with Plaid. Could you elaborate.

February 2, 2023
11:22 am
Warwick111
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If I want to add a new link account, say CIBC, I will have to log in to my CIBC account through Plaid's portal. Plaid has the capability to capture my CIBC username and password and may even have access to take screen shots. I will avoid anything that requires me to login my bank accounts through Plaid.

More info from Wiki:
'Plaid's product, a technology platform, enables applications to connect with users’ bank accounts.[2] It allows consumers and businesses to interact with their bank accounts, check balances, and make payments through different financial technology applications.'

Controversy
The company has faced controversy for scraping user data, impersonating bank login screens, and not properly disclosing the privacy risks associated with the service.[32] TD Bank filed a lawsuit against Plaid in 2020 accusing the company of trying to "dupe" its users.[33]

In 2021, Plaid settled a $58 million class action lawsuit over claims that it passed on personal banking data to third party firms without user consent. The settlement encompasses five separate lawsuits combined as one. Each claims that Plaid used consumers’ banking login credentials to gather and distribute detailed financial data without prior consent.[34]

Plaid has "exploited its position as middleman," the plaintiffs alleged. Approximately 98 million people are affected by the settlement. Claimants will be given the option to receive the settlement money automatically through payment platforms such as PayPal and Venmo. '

February 2, 2023
11:25 am
HermanH
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Many thanks. sf-cool

February 4, 2023
1:04 pm
Doug
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This isn't quite as game-changing as EQ Bank's EQ Bank Card, but it's up there. Can you confirm if external accounts added with Plaid can be used to facilitate money transfers in the "Transfer Money" screen in Tangerine, or does it just provide up-to-date balance information on your external accounts? The second is potentially useful, but I'm particularly interested in the former. If it does, I could see Tangerine potentially replacing their three linked external accounts with a third-party provider like Plaid in the future. Going forward, the Bank of Canada and federal government are keen to mandate open banking APIs on all federally-regulated financial institutions, so it's in institutions' best interests to get in on it now. 🙂

Cheers,
Doug

February 4, 2023
3:20 pm
Warwick111
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I don't feel comfortable logging in my bank accounts thru Plaid, may be someone else interested can try and confirm. Looks like it will only provide current account balances but not transfer money. This is what I see on the screen:

Financial Institutions added with Plaid
These accounts are from other financial institutions you’ve added with Plaid. They’re not linked to your Tangerine Account(s). Secure, safe, and private, use Plaid to view your finances all in one place.

February 4, 2023
3:47 pm
hwyc
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Me neither!

Virtual FIs put a 3rd party service in between and increasingly leaning on this path, cutting off all other options. But when you read into the T&Cs, the client is offered virtually no protection.

March 3, 2023
9:42 pm
Roberto
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This whole thing with Plaid confused me. I thought Plaid replaced the "send two small amounts of money and tell us what they are" method of account linking. It doesn't. If you want to link accounts to transfer money, you still do this by entering your transit numbers, etc, then doing the whole tell me the two small amounts thing. This is done by selecting on from the menu from the YourName pull down / profile and settings/external accounts. Plaid is only if you want to be on the overview page and see a live balance of all your external accounts at a given institution. You do this from the bottom of the page of the overview tab (add financial institution). You can only VIEW the balance when linked through Plaid, so you don't need to use it if you don't want to, you can login separately to your other institution to find out what your balance is before transferring. I'm not sure if everyone else figured this out but it wasn't obvious to me that there was two different kinds of account linking here, and Tangerine didn't make the distinction clear either. At first when I saw the stuff about Plaid I figured I would no longer be able to add external accounts to transfer money.

March 4, 2023
2:33 am
RetirEd
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Any web parasite between me and a company I deal with is an unwanted risk. Why would they provide a service if they weren't getting a financial advantage from it?
RetirEd

RetirEd

March 5, 2023
12:23 pm
Lodown
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From the Plaid lawsuit: "All affected customers will be paid about $13.50 each".
Assuming the lawyers got 4 times that per user. The total per user amount is only about $70. With such a low cost of doing business Plaid will be right back at it in no time. Everyone should stay far, far away from these "intermediaries"!

March 5, 2023
12:57 pm
Norman1
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Lodown said
… The total per user amount is only about $70. With such a low cost of doing business Plaid will be right back at it in no time. Everyone should stay far, far away from these "intermediaries"!

I agree.

Handing over login passwords, that can be used to send money, to Plaid for up to three different online banking systems for what? Just to be able to see the balances of those other accounts when I'm on Tangerine's online banking?

March 12, 2023
5:25 am
savemoresaveoften
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Norman1 said

Lodown said
… The total per user amount is only about $70. With such a low cost of doing business Plaid will be right back at it in no time. Everyone should stay far, far away from these "intermediaries"!

I agree.

Handing over login passwords, that can be used to send money, to Plaid for up to three different online banking systems for what? Just to be able to see the balances of those other accounts when I'm on Tangerine's online banking?  

It looks like Placid is the only option if one wants to link external accounts with Tangerine now. There is no option to choose the old school two micro deposit option or Canada Post verification. The linked account is for online transfer etc.
I am very open to digital banking and whats not, but this is beyond my comfort level for now. Using a 3rd party Fintech and potentially expose my main banking account login info is NOT worth it.

March 12, 2023
7:56 am
iotama
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I already have 3 accounts linked via the old secure method, so I don't need to do this right now.

But moving forward, There is NO WAY I'm going to give a shady 3rd party (Plaid or Flinks) my username and password for my external bank accounts.

3rd Party APIs like Flinks or Plaid also log in to external accounts periodically to harvest data, and it even fails often. (TD has sued one of them successfully, but nothing was made public much, so most of the folks none the wiser.) Also, when these APIs fail to connect (which is often), your external bank notifies you (if it doesn't outright block your account) for "someone trying to log in to your account". During those fail connections, no body knows if your login credentials have been compromised or intercepted (Plaid or Flinks never disclose the failures.) On top of all the security implications, some of their new practises are even more outrageous. I have also seen mentions of these APIs taking screenshots and "canvas fingerprinting" your computer/phone browser. There is probably is far more going on behind the scenes than we'd ever know.

If Tangerine does not allow replacing existing linked accounts using the old secure method (token deposits), I won't be using Tangerine for any thing new and would only use them with the existing linked accounts. I guess it was a good run with Tang, and besides, I'm already sick of their lottery schemes.

This should be talked about much more than just a thread here, in my humble opinion. We shouldn't let banks get away with it so casually.

March 13, 2023
2:17 pm
rhvic
Victoria, BC
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I will certainly not be using Plaid, or FLinks, or anything similar, to link any FI to any other FI. I already have three external accounts linked to Tangerine through their old system, so that will be all I get, I suppose.

For those who are worried that Plaid or FLinks will log into their accounts to check on some status issue, would it not be very prudent, immediately after initially using Plaid or FLinks to make such a connection, to change the banking passwords on the connected accounts? Then they cannot log in anymore. Since the account connections were already established, that hopefully would not affect any push/pull with those FIs, and now ones privacy is hopefully secure again.

March 13, 2023
2:45 pm
iotama
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rhvic said
would it not be very prudent, immediately after initially using Plaid or FLinks to make such a connection, to change the banking passwords on the connected accounts?   

I am almost certain that once is enough for these APIs to "slurp" as much data on you from the target bank. We don't know how much is made available by the FIs to these APIs — and to what extent in history… and whether the username/password are the only credentials exchanged or maintained among them… or whether no other auth-tokens are established besides usernames/password between these FIs to continue exchanging data, since you have expressly consented to allow them to do that repeatedly.

The point is, there is a lot of unknown than known with these shadowy services. And that's why we should be super wary.

March 14, 2023
1:32 pm
Wrayzor
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First post, but long time lurker.

The transition to the forced usage of Plaid to link external accounts disturbed me so much that I reached out to Tangerine to find out if that was actually the case. Their reply to my inquiry stated that up to 3 external accounts can still be linked via the old secure method (i.e. without involving Plaid) and if at the max, an existing linked account must be deleted before adding a new one. I haven't tried to see if this works as I don't need to link another account beyond the 3 that I currently have set up.

I don't understand why anyone would want to use Plaid or Flinks. There is next to no value add and so much risk and potential liability assumed.

March 14, 2023
2:49 pm
savemoresaveoften
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Wrayzor said
First post, but long time lurker.

The transition to the forced usage of Plaid to link external accounts disturbed me so much that I reached out to Tangerine to find out if that was actually the case. Their reply to my inquiry stated that up to 3 external accounts can still be linked via the old secure method (i.e. without involving Plaid) and if at the max, an existing linked account must be deleted before adding a new one. I haven't tried to see if this works as I don't need to link another account beyond the 3 that I currently have set up.

I don't understand why anyone would want to use Plaid or Flinks. There is next to no value add and so much risk and potential liability assumed.  

Good to know. I had 3 links, deleted 1 link, and try to add a third few days later. The system default to Plaid only.
If I do decide to add a 3rd again, will contact them for the 2 micro deposits method. I won’t use Plaid.

March 14, 2023
4:37 pm
Save2Retire@55
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There is still the 3 accounts link limitation. The Plaid is to view the balance of the other accounts inside Tangerine.

I think it is a cool option! View Only so doesn't hurt.

March 14, 2023
5:16 pm
HermanH
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savemoresaveoften said
I had 3 links, deleted 1 link, and try to add a third few days later. The system default to Plaid only.

Not my experience. I, too, recently deleted links and re-added others (within my 3-link allowance), without any Plaid requirement. I kept getting the usual procedure for additional of a new link.

March 14, 2023
5:41 pm
savemoresaveoften
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HermanH said

savemoresaveoften said
I had 3 links, deleted 1 link, and try to add a third few days later. The system default to Plaid only.

Not my experience. I, too, recently deleted links and re-added others (within my 3-link allowance), without any Plaid requirement. I kept getting the usual procedure for additional of a new link.  

After reading your post, I went in just now to test:

Currently two accounts linked, after clicking "Add Financal institution" and accept the term and condition, it takes me to this screen (no other options)
plaid-screenshot.jpg

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