Is Plaid safe if I change the password after deposit?

Question

Many services, like Coinbase or Robinhood, use Plaid to deposit money from Bank. I understand that Plaid stores 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:

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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

No.

The reason being that they collect all the data they can from your bank when they get access. They get information about all of your loans and payment history. They can then sell or lose this information.

It's a huge privacy problem. It's also totally unnecessary. They should be able to do low cost transfers in and out using only the checking information. This is how all other services worked throughout history. No reason to invent a less secure option.