Payments firm Stripe now allows businesses to set up direct links with their customer's bank accounts, providing quick access to their financial data.
Stripe says its new Financial Connections feature will remove the need for businesses to build custom integrations with a multitude of different financial institutions, or for consumers to go through the “tedious process” taking extra steps such as making microdeposits.
The payments gateway provider, which achieved a valuation of $95 billion in its latest March funding round, said the service will allow businesses to use their customers’ financial data to streamline payments, reduce fraud, underwrite risk, and to build new products.
Stripe Financial Connections
Stripe says Financial Connections will allow businesses to streamline direct debit payments via linked bank accounts, which it claims will boost conversion, and will allow platforms to use linked bank account information to underwrite risk and offer loans to their business users.
Financial Connections will also open the door to a suite of other financial services according to Stripe, including providing customers with tools for tracking budgets, paying bills, and identifying spending patterns.
Stripe says that Financial Connections allows customers to simply enter their online banking credentials and select the account they’d like to link, and that it works with the full spectrum of platforms and businesses, from NFT creators to churches.
The company claims Financial Connections will work with 90% of US bank accounts, and allows businesses to retrieve data from around 5,000 financial institutions
The service is first set to go live in the US, where Stripe is one of the most popular credit card processing services for businesses, but the firm did not comment on whether the service may be rolled out in other regions.
The news comes as Stripe, currently the world’s most valuable private company, has been expanding the variety of services it offers clients.
Stripe now provides a range of crypto-focused services, including fiat payments APIs, Know Your Customer (KYC) tools, fraud prevention, on-ramps, and identity verification.
The firm has also been increasingly making moves to enter the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ space by joining forces with both Clearpay and Klarna, making it easier for users to spread out the cost of their ecommerce purchases.
