Dive Brief:

• Current on Tuesday announced the launch of its application programming interface (API) platform, a product the neobank said will help facilitate seamless integrations and embedded banking experiences for its customers. 
• The New York City-based company announced Plaid as its first partner, a tie-up the two firms said will enable Current’s customers to access more than 6,000 apps and services powered by the data aggregator’s network. 
• The partnership represents fintechs’ growing shift to APIs over credential sharing or screen scraping, a method many traditional financial institutions have tried to block.

Dive Insight:

Current customers can now connect their account to thousands of fintech apps, including digital payments, financial planning and investment tools on the Plaid network, the companies said in a press release. 

"Our new platform API gives open banking partners the capability to embed our core banking technology," Trevor Marshall, Current’s chief technology officer said in a statement.

Current enabled the integration with Plaid in response to feedback from its more than 4 million customers, Marshall said. 

“With Plaid, our members can access experiences that can help improve their financial lives with control and security,” he said. 

Plaid, which has built integrations with more than 12,000 financial institutions, including neobanks and fintechs, is the first data aggregator to partner with Current on the platform. 

"We're thrilled to enable a simple, secure on-ramp to digital financial services for Current members, who are often banking for the first time in their lives,” said Raja Chakravorti, partnerships lead for universal access at Plaid. “The integration ensures that consumers are in control of where and how their financial data is permissioned and shared, information that is essential to setting up a healthy financial life."

Current and Plaid said their new partnership promotes secure access for customers looking to link their financial data to other apps by leveraging phone number and device authentication, eliminating reliance on banking credentials.

Plaid has been actively working to increase its API traffic and move away from credential sharing or screen scraping, a method of accessing passwords to gather customer data to link their accounts to financial apps.

Large banks such as JPMorgan Chase and PNC have blocked some aggregators from accessing passwords, citing privacy concerns.