Many services, like Coinbase or Robinhood, use Plaid to deposit money from Bank. I understand the fact that Plaid store my login and password, somewhere... somehow... who really knows. A lot of people complain about that, so I have an idea, but it's so simple I'm not sure if that would work.

Let's say you trade on Coinbase. Every time you need to deposit money via Plaid, you do: 1. change the password to your online bank account 2. pair your bank with Coinbase 3. deposit money 4. unpair your bank (I'm not sure if necessary) 5. change back the password.

Would you consider this approach 100% safe?


I know nothing of the services you're discussing, but I wouldn't be comfortable with giving my username and password for my bank account to any third party. At that point the other party is you, as far as your bank is concerned. The third party could change the password, change your email, change your address, etc. You might be able to convince a bank to roll back the changes but it wouldn't be fun. Your bank may even have specific language in your banking contract to limit their liability in case of negligence on your part.

  • I'm not exactly sure what do you mean by "They"? Coinbase doesn't know the password. Plaid technically yes, but they are safe. What's not safe (Imho) that there is a possibility that someone will hack into Plaid in the future. For the sake of this question I assume, that Plaid itself is safe (even so, they will have my password only for 5min). But thanks for answer – Ish Thomas Jan 26 at 2:13
  • Sorry, I hadn't realized I misused 'they'. I've amended the answer to make clear that I think your bank may not be happy about you sharing your username and password with a third party service. Thanks. – sarnold Jan 30 at 3:53

Your Answer

