I’m trying to set up a Wise account with my banking details. Wise transfer me to Plaid who want the user name and password for my bank account.
For those of you who have your accounts set up, did you actually give them this information? Sounds like all kind of wrong to me.
Help please.

I don’t recall using or being directed to Plaid when registering with wise some years ago, but it may be a thing now. I certainly am doubtful about them requiring your bank username and password.

https://wise.com/us/blog/what-is-plaid



discussion on Reddit about this 3 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinBegi...how/?rdt=39642

Doesn’t sound at all secure. No way I’m giving out those details to anyone and certainly not to some random app.

im sure most, if not all of you using Wise, haven’t done that. So will someone please explain how I transfer money from my TD Canada checking account to Wise to transfer to the UK. I’m beyond confused.

I didn't have to go through Plaid when I registered years ago, but when I did a transfer last week I did - for the first time. It actually did the 2FA challenge that my US bank sometimes does, and asked me all the security questions I'd set up at that bank many years ago. This is clearly a tightening up of security at Wise, probably owing to the data breach at their previous partner bank in the US. If you Google Wise and data breach you'll learn everything about it. I'm afraid if you want to use Wise you're going to have to go through this. I did my own research when I saw Plaid come up and it's clear that Wise are using them as the middle-man to provide an extra layer of security. Seemed perfectly kosher to me.

BTW, when I say middle-man, for all I know Plaid could be a layer of software that Wise (and others presumably) build into their own systems to provide extra security. In that sense, your sensitive data wouldn't leave Wise. I don't know if that's the case, so don't quote me, but it wouldn't be unheard of.

There's a similar concern happening in the UK at the moment - using the OpenBanking API. For example, if you want to pay HMRC some money - let's say you want to make voluntary NI contributions - you can do an "instant transfer" from your bank. To achieve this, HMRC uses TrueLayer to connect you to your bank and set up all the transfer details - all you have to do is authorise the payment. Which is pretty neat. Yet, people are getting suspicious because there's this mystery "middle-man" between HMRC and your bank.

it’s not the “middle man” idea that concerns me. It’s that by giving my user name and password for my bank account, I’m giving an unknown entity unfettered access to my bank accounts. Just can’t imagine ever knowingly doing that. Am I missing something?

You are right to be wary, obviously. The banks are constantly warning us to be aware of scams and giving personal details away. The best advice I can give you is to do your own research into Plaid and consider the source of info when doing that. There are plenty of scaremongers and conspiracy theorists out there.

Supplying your banking login credentials is not a new thing for Wise. Previously, before the advent of Plaid, and pretty much every time I went to transfer money from my US bank to the UK (using ACH) I had to "reconnect to my bank" because Wise were reporting that there were insufficient funds in my US bank (that was incorrect). I don't know how they were coming to that conclusion - I suspect they were using balance info from the previous transfer, without knowing that funds had been credited in the meantime. Either way, "reconnecting to my bank" involved entering my US banking login credentials but into a dialog box presented by Wise. So, even back then, Wise had access to my bank's username/pwd and could have done naughty things with them. Clearly, Wise have to answer to financial regulators on these points. The only difference is that now, you're giving your banking login credentials to Plaid who, I would hope, are similarly regulated. Maybe Wise, given their previous data breach, have now decided (or been forced to) rely on a third party for better industry standard security. But, as I said, do your own research.

If you're not happy that's fine but you may not be able to use Wise at all. I don't know for sure though. Maybe if you were to wire your money into Wise, rather than ACH debit, they wouldn't need to "reconnect to your bank".

This is what I used to do all the time before I installed the Wise app. I have free wires from my US bank and Wise is set up as a known payee.

Thank you for your taking so much time to provide me with your thoughts and experience. I’ll look into it further but that’s our life savings so I’ll probably just use our bank’s transfer service and sleep at nights. Thanks again.

Thank you. I was trying to install the Wise app when they transferred me to Plaid to enter my username and password. I’ll try again and see if they offer any alternative.

I have just transferred a small amount from my NZ bank account to my UK one using the Wise app just to see if anything had changed since the last time I did it. I didn't need to give Wise any if my login details. I do however make the transfer myself to Wise, then they arrange for the funds to be transferred to my UK account.
Not sure if it differs for US accounts

If I read this correctly, Wise had a data breach problem with their "partner" bank - and to resolve it they expect their customers to expose themselves to a potential fraud.

(PS: I have a Wise account, never used it, looks like I never will)

Thank you all for your support and comments. I’ve given up on Wise fo now at least.

If it helps everyone, I have used Plaid a number of times in recent years. It is popular with financial institutions as an extra level of security when linking accounts. I have used Wise to transfer money for years but just recently opened an account just to have another option. I had no problem going through the Plaid process as I am familiar with it, but only have a few $$ in the account and will probably continue using Wise to transfer.

Honestly, the only reason they are doing this is if you want the convenience of Wise "pulling" money from your bank account when making a transfer. I understand the concern about allowing this, but you can choose to not link an account and simply "push" money to your Wise account when making a transfer. I still have Wise set up as a payee in my US bank account and when making a transfer to my UK bank account I can initiate the transfer in Wise then wire the money from my US bank. (You put your Wise account number in the comment field of the wire)