Introduction

With Core Exchange, Plaid has taken the guesswork out of building to the FDX standard. With our spec, your organization will know exactly which fields are needed to power connectivity to the Plaid Network and be FDX-aligned. By building a Core Exchange API, you’ll enable your customers to seamlessly connect their accounts to over 8,000 applications powered by Plaid, including payment services, budgeting apps, and many more. Core Exchange is offered at no cost.

CFPB’s Proposed rulemaking on Personal Financial Data rights (i.e. “1033”)

In a major step toward solidifying open banking in the U.S., the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced its proposed 1033 rule on October 19, 2023. Once finalized, this rule would require most providers of financial services to provide a developer interface (an API) to allow their customers to access and share their financial data. Learn more about the Dodd-Frank Section 1033 proposed rulemaking and key considerations for financial services providers going forward in this article.

Your Core Exchange integration will help prepare your organization to comply with upcoming regulatory requirements. For more information on preparing your API strategy, please reach out to your Plaid contact.

What this guide contains

This documentation contains all the information you need to build your own Core Exchange API. It includes:

  • A checklist of all the steps that must be completed during each stage of development
  • A visual walkthrough of the experience your users will have once Plaid is fully integrated to your Core Exchange API
  • An in-depth explanation of the OpenID Connect-compliant authentication process
  • Example requests you can send to our mock server to get familiar with the Core Exchange data sets
  • An API reference with sample requests, responses and required fields for all the Core Exchange endpoints

Please reach out to the Plaid team for implementation questions not addressed in this documentation.

Benefits

When you build a Core Exchange API, your users will gain access to Plaid's extensive network of financial apps. You will also benefit from having an API that is interoperable with other organizations that comply with Financial Data Exchange (FDX) API standards.

Plaid network

Once your Core Exchange API has been successfully validated by Plaid, your organization will appear in Plaid Link's list of available apps. (See the Plaid Link Demo for a visual walkthrough of an end-user's experience.)

Plaid Link bank selection

Interoperability

Core Exchange is a subset of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) API standard. FDX is a common standard for financial data networks (including the Plaid network). This means that when you build a Core Exchange API, you will be able to connect to Plaid’s extensive ecosystem of fintech apps as well as other financial data aggregators and organizations.

Simplified FDX implementation

The Core Exchange API allows you to streamline and validate the implementation of a successful FDX API integration.

With one dedicated engineer in your organization, building the Core Exchange API can typically be completed in six weeks to eight weeks from the date all approvals and resources are in place for your organization. This estimated timeline covers the time period for building, testing, and deployment. It doesn't cover your institution's internal review and approval process, migrating existing integrations, or other considerations included in this document.

API flow overview

At a high level, the Plaid network sends your API secure requests for account balance and transaction information.

Security flow

Plaid uses your OpenID Connect security flow to allow your users to connect their financial accounts to their other financial applications.

Plaid requests account information

The first time a user connects their account to the Plaid network, Plaid will send a request for a transaction history period of two years. Afterward, Plaid will send periodic requests for a transaction history period of 14 days. Plaid will also periodically request other account information, including current balances, available balances, and liabilities.

The most common accounts are:

  • Deposit accounts
  • Investment accounts
  • Loan accounts (most commonly STUDENTLOAN and MORTGAGE)
  • Line of credit accounts (most commonly CREDITCARD)

Plaid doesn't use Core Exchange for the following:

  • Plaid doesn't initiate money movement through Core Exchange.
  • Plaid doesn't allow Plaid partners access to your organization's Core Exchange API implementation directly.

Security and privacy

Plaid has established security and privacy processes to help keep your customer's data secure. See the Plaid Security Portal for more information.