Plaid + Sila Integration

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Plaid Contract - need to know:

Sila requires the use of Plaid's Balance, Identity, and Auth products, please ensure these products are included in your Plaid contract.

Additionally, you may choose to take advantage of other Plaid products but they are not required by Sila.

For the Plaid integration, you'll be using Plaid Link - a drop-in client-side integration for the Plaid API that handles input validation, error handling, and multi-factor authentication.

End users will use Plaid Link to authenticate with their financial institution and select the bank account they wish to link.

Implementation Overview

Complete these steps, detailed here in Plaid's documentation:

1. Enable Plaid account to use the Sila Money Integration
2. Create a link_token (Plaid-specific object)
3. Integrate with Plaid Link
4. Token Exchange to obtain Sila processor_token for use in /link_account endpoint

How to provide the processor token in the /link_account call and response samples can be found on the /link_account docs.

Do NOT link the same bank account twice with different processor tokens. This will result in Sila creating a new payment instrument and Plaid invalidating the original processor token.

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Store Plaid request_id

It is your responsibility to store the request_id returned from Plaid's response when generating the processor_token in the even that it needs to be provided to Plaid.

The Plaid API response includes both the processor_token that should be passed to Sila along with a request_id.

If you run into issues with the processor_token, Plaid requires that you provide the request_id when reporting a troubleshooting ticket for that processor_token

The request_id is not packaged inside the processor_token you submit to Sila on the /link_account call. Therefore, Sila does NOT have access to the request_id.

Sandbox: Linking a Plaid Mock Bank Account

In Sandbox ONLY, you can mock a bank account linking with any bank that shows up in the interface of the Plaid Link modal.

Plaid Modal Sandbox Credentials:

• username: user_good
• password: pass_good

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WARNING: Fuzzy Name Match Algorithm

Read more about the Fuzzy Name Match Algorithm HERE.

It is recommended that you wait until an end user passes KYC before you allow them to link an account.

If a users fails KYC there is a risk that the account that they linked be frozen and you will get the following error message: "Bank account linked, but in a frozen state. Requires manual review - contact support to unfreeze this bank account."

Testing a linked account

See the testing docs to test triggering successful and failing /link_account calls.