Fintech company Plaid has announced the release of Income, a beta product looking to simplify income verification so customers can secure loans, qualify for mortgages, rent apartments, lease vehicles, and more.
The company said Income can also be used by mortgage lenders to capture and “digest” a person’s income data directly from their payroll provider to make more informed decisions about their creditworthiness.
Carputty and Myra, two financial service companies are partnering with Plaid in the endeavor.
“The past decade of fintech innovation has shown that people can make better financial decisions, more easily with better access to and control of their own financial data,” said Kate Adamson, Plaid’s product lead. “We see access to payroll data as the next area of opportunity for innovators to enhance how financial services can serve consumers and create a whole new swath of services that help people live healthier financial lives.”
The traditional verification approval process can be lengthy: A mortgage pre-approval can take up to two weeks, and the entire mortgage process can take one to two months. The goal of Plaid Income’s verification process is to streamline the application process safely, by providing instant access to source income, employment, and tax data with one authentication.
When accessing Plaid, consumers are given two options on how they can verify their income – by using their employer or payroll provider account, or by uploading payroll documents like paystubs, W2s, and 1099’s.
All information must be permission-granted by the customer.
Income is the second platform Plaid will use in its payroll operations, the first being Deposit Switch; Deposit Switch begins the instant process of switching a customer’s direct deposit to their bank account.
Plaid’s technology enables apps to connect with users’ bank accounts. Its customers include fintech platforms like Venmo, SoFi, Betterment, Square, PayPal, Robinhood and Affirm, as well as tech players such as Google and Microsoft.
Since its founding in 2013, Plaid has collected $309.3 million in funding. Aside from Visa, Plaid’s investors include Goldman Sachs, a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Citi Ventures, American Express Ventures, GV, Index Ventures, NEA and former Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker. Its most recent valuation was $5.3 billion.
In January, Visa and Plaid cancelled a planned $5.3 billion merger
