TL;DR
As open banking continues to reshape digital payments in 2025, businesses are seeking faster, more secure, and cost-effective alternatives to traditional card-based systems.
Plaid is a widely-used open banking platform that enables businesses to access financial data, verify accounts, and initiate payments through APIs — powering a range of fintech services across the industry.
Ivy stands out as the top Plaid alternative, offering instant, low-cost Open Banking payments with over 90% conversion rates, smart routing, fraud prevention, and a seamless user experience that scales with your business.
Other alternatives like Yapily, Trustly, GoCardless, and Tink also provide open banking services, but vary in coverage, flexibility, and user experience.
As digital payments continue to evolve, businesses and consumers are seeking faster, more cost-effective payment solutions that reduce friction at checkout and eliminate unnecessary intermediaries. In this guide, we’ll explore Plaid, a leading open banking platform, its features, pricing, and the top Plaid alternatives to consider in 2025.
What is Plaid?
Plaid is a financial technology company that enables secure connections between applications and users' bank accounts. By providing APIs, Plaid allows businesses to access banking data, verify accounts, and facilitate payments seamlessly. It powers a wide range of financial services, including budgeting apps, payment processors, and lending platforms.
Plaid Features
Plaid is a comprehensive open banking platform with these features and products:
Payments: Initiate instant bank payments from within your app. Covers both one-off and recurring payments, as well as pay-ins and payouts.
Balance: Real-time balance checks of customer accounts.
Identity: Verify user identity to protect against fraud.
Transactions: Access up to two years of transaction history, including merchant and category information.
Assets: Verify borrower assets, including account balances and historical transactions.
Auth: Set up direct debits and payouts
Plaid Pricing
Custom pricing. Get in touch with Plaid for more information.
Best Plaid Alternatives in 2025
Ivy
Ivy is transforming digital payments with its Open Banking-powered solutions, used by some of Europe’s biggest brands. With instant transactions, lower fees, and enhanced security, Ivy provides a powerful alternative to Plaid.
Benefits
Coverage Champion: Ivy partners with top-tier local banks and Open Banking providers, ensuring businesses maximize their bank coverage.
Conversion Champion: With advanced smart routing technology, Ivy selects the best local Open Banking infrastructure for each transaction in real-time, achieving conversion rates of over 90%.
Enhanced User Experience: Returning customers benefit from pre-populated banking details, eliminating the need to select their bank repeatedly, thus streamlining the payment process.
Fraud Reduction: Ivy leverages Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)-compliant Open Banking payments to eliminate chargeback fraud.
Products
Instant Payments: Businesses can accept low-cost, real-time payments directly from customer bank accounts.
Recurring Payments: Ivy facilitates flexible, frictionless recurring transactions that are more secure than Direct Debit and cheaper than card payments.
Instant Payouts: Businesses can offer fast, reliable payouts to their customers with instant transaction processing.
Fees
Ivy offers custom pricing. Get in touch with us for more information here.
Yapily
Yapily is a leading open banking platform that provides direct API access to more than 2,000 banks across Europe. It enables businesses to securely process payments and access financial data.
Yapily’s offerings include instant payments, Variable Recurring Payments (VRP), bulk transactions, account verification, customer data insights, and Yapily Connect for secure and regulated open banking integration.
Trustly
Trustly is a leading open banking payment solution that empowers consumers to make online payments directly from their bank accounts, removing the need for expensive intermediaries like credit cards or digital wallets. Serving over 12,000 banks across 33 countries, Trustly simplifies the payment process for both businesses and consumers.
Its platform enables rapid, real-time payments that are completed within seconds, offering a smooth account-to-account transaction experience. Trustly also supports instant deposits to improve conversion rates, enhance user experience, and allow businesses to make instant payouts in any European currency. Furthermore, it strengthens compliance and KYC by linking customer data with transactions, while offering recurring payment options through Direct Debit mandates, reducing errors and manual input.
GoCardless
GoCardless is a payment solution that allows individuals to make payments directly from their bank accounts, helping businesses optimize and automate their payment collections, while cutting down on costs and time spent on manual processes.
GoCardless offers a variety of payment solutions, including recurring Direct Debit payments, cross-border transactions, and open banking features like one-time payments and Variable Recurring Payments (VRP). With its open banking verification system, it enhances both security and regulatory compliance.
Tink
Tink is an open banking platform that connects to over 6,000 banks across Europe, providing businesses with access to real-time financial data and enabling seamless direct bank payments.
Tink's offerings include instant bank payments, Variable Recurring Payments (VRP), payouts, and risk management capabilities. Additionally, it provides open banking data services such as transaction histories, account validation, liabilities, financial insights, and tools for enhanced financial management.
FAQs
What is Plaid?
Plaid is a financial technology company that connects applications to users' bank accounts. It provides APIs that allow businesses to access bank data securely for services like payments, budgeting, lending, and more. Plaid supports a wide range of financial institutions, making financial data integration seamless and efficient.
Is Plaid safe?
Yes, Plaid is safe. It uses encryption and security protocols to protect users' data. Plaid is also compliant with financial regulations like PSD2, ensuring secure access to sensitive financial information. Additionally, it works with trusted financial institutions to provide secure connections, minimizing risks associated with data breaches or unauthorized access.
Additional Resources:
This publication is provided for general information purposes and does not constitute legal, tax or other professional advice from Ivy GmbH or its subsidiaries and its affiliates, and it is not intended as a substitute for obtaining advice from a financial advisor or any other professional. We make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether expressed or implied, that the content in the publication is accurate, complete or up to date.
