Visa Buys Plaid for $5.3 Billion

[Tay]

Plaid is a platform that allow customers to connect their bank accounts to a variety of services for direct withdrawals removing the need for the two separate micro-transactions to confirm this is your account (Stripe uses plaid to integrate bank account transfers).

Plaid, co-founded by Zach Perret and William Hockey in 2013, connects customers’ bank accounts to a variety of other fintechs, including Chime, Zelle, Transferwise and Venmo, owned by PayPal Holdings Inc. Plaid’s technology eliminated the cumbersome and time-consuming process of putting microdeposits into a checking account for customer verification purposes.

Plaid said that it will run as an independent business unit of Visa, with Perret, Plaid's CEO, reporting to Visa Chief Product Officer Jack Forestell. Hockey left Plaid last year.

"We were very impressed by the Visa team from the minute they approached us," Perret said in a company blog post. "They share our vision for the future of financial services and have deep respect for the developer community we support.

"We'll be able to lean on their brand, resources and international footprint," Perret said.

Plaid was valued at about $2.65 billion in a 2018 financing round. Visa and rival MasterCard both participated in that round, according to S&P Capital IQ. Other investors in Plaid include Goldman Sachs and NEA.

“We are extremely excited about our acquisition of Plaid and how it enhances the growth trajectory of our business,” Visa CEO Al Kelly said in a statement. “The acquisition, combined with our many fintech efforts already underway, will position Visa to deliver even more value for developers, financial institutions and consumers.​

Source Visa buying one of San Francisco’s top fintechs for $5.3 billion

 

[Ryuzaki]

The next thing someone needs to eliminate are services like Stripe and Paypal altogether. We need some kind of ACH wire transfer service that costs what seems to be about 30¢ tops without the ridiculous scaling fee after it, that can take funds from any of these online doohickeys or banks or cards or even pre-paid cards.

I don't see why that's not possible. I can see why nobody has done it since every time we send $2500 they earn about $100 for doing what costs them no extra to do even if it was a $1 transfer. Someone needs to disrupt that racket ASAP.

 

[JamaicanMoose]

The next thing someone needs to eliminate are services like Stripe and Paypal altogether. We need some kind of ACH wire transfer service that costs what seems to be about 30¢ tops without the ridiculous scaling fee after it, that can take funds from any of these online doohickeys or banks or cards or even pre-paid cards.

I don't see why that's not possible. I can see why nobody has done it since every time we send $2500 they earn about $100 for doing what costs them no extra to do even if it was a $1 transfer. Someone needs to disrupt that racket ASAP.

Isn't that what Ripple is trying to enable?

 

[illmasterj]

Yeah I think https://gocardless.com is doing this but they're still charging a premium for it.

 

[CCarter]

There is no real incentive for the old guard to reduce fees until something really disruptive happens and gains traction. And not something silly like bitcoin.

And then when something gets big enough the old guard swallows it up and we are back to the same scenario. IF there is something that eliminates the need for a final bank account then maybe, until then prices stay high and they can use the excuse “regulatory”.

 

[GNews]

I just want to be a company these big whale companies are threatened by and throw the sink at to stop it from growing further.

And hey.. maybe it's just me but I miss the good ol' days of opening money orders & cash that came in the mail from eBay . Nothing like that mailbox money with nobody in between.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I just learned about and used Zelle, which seems to already have the marketshare with most big banks. I received money from Chase to my rinky dink unknown local bank, who already had it integrated. I wondered what that purple Z was in the dashboard. These guys could end up being the winners, though I'd guess all the big players have big integration in place already. But I only see one logo on my dashboard...