Pinwheel becomes Plaid's Preferred Provider for direct deposit switching and helps power additional payroll data for income verification

Pinwheel joins Plaid's Partner Network as its Preferred Provider for direct deposit switching (DDS) services and is helping to provide additional consumer-permissioned payroll data to Plaid's Income product. Pinwheel powers the next generation of tools and services tailored to each person's income and employment needs.

NEW YORK, Aug. 17, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Pinwheel, the market-leading provider of income and employment data engineered for fintech innovation, partners with Plaid, the leading open finance network, to provide complementary payroll data services for its Income product. In addition, Pinwheel will become a Preferred Provider for direct deposit switching (DDS) services. As the Preferred Provider, Plaid will refer customers in need of direct deposit switching services to Pinwheel.

The most important part of a person's financial life is their income. Whether a consumer earns a biweekly salary, irregular gig-work payments, unemployment benefits, or any type of income in between, they need to seamlessly connect their income accounts to their financial apps, especially as 90% of consumers want more control over their financial data.

Preferred Provider of Direct Deposit Switching (DDS):

Pinwheel connects to over 1,700 platforms covering 80% of US workers and over 1.5 million employers, and it's the only payroll API that covers up to 100% of consumers who are paid via direct deposit. Pinwheel Deposit Switch enables every user to utilize the direct deposit switching user experience to drive maximum conversion through Pinwheel's intelligent detection, regardless of how they receive their paycheck. Deposit-switching solutions must accommodate all income profile types to deliver maximum value. With the consumer's permission, Pinwheel automatically offers the best switching options for each customer profile.

Direct deposit switching for every customer and scenario:

• Credential-less: Seamless switching enabled by direct partnerships with payroll companies.
• Login-based: Credential-based logins with over 1,700 payroll service providers and gig platforms.
• Form-based: Enhanced pre-filled forms with sharing guidance and customizations.

Consumers can also use their payroll credentials to log in via the Pinwheel flow and update their deposit settings via the Automated option.

Pinwheel Deposit Switch offers deep insights through allocation monitoring so banks and fintechs can better understand customers' financial pictures and provide products that best meet their needs.

"The promise of digital finance means unlocking financial freedom and making it easy for consumers to access better financial services and, ultimately, better financial outcomes," said Tamara Romanek, Head of Partnerships of Plaid. "We selected Pinwheel as our Preferred Provider for direct deposit switching referrals so that our customers can better support the needs of their customers and leverage different tools in our partner network that enhance their product experiences."

Additional provider of Income and Employment for underwriting use cases:

Pinwheel is now also helping to provide additional consumer-permissioned payroll data for its Income product, which enables lenders to verify their borrowers' income through pay stubs, bank statements, and payroll data. Pinwheel offers the industry's highest level of connectivity and is the only provider in the space that applies advanced analytics and intelligence to make sense of the data for banks and fintechs.

"Fintech has come so far in the past decade, and we're now staring down the next era of great innovation, one that will be built atop real-time income and employment data," said Brian Karimi-Pashaki, Partnerships Lead of Pinwheel. "Plaid fostered the fintech ecosystem we know today, and we're proud to embark on this partnership that closely aligns with our mission to create a fairer financial system and will help power new and improved underwriting processes for mortgages, auto, and personal loans. Income is arguably the most important part of someone's financial picture, and we're just scratching the surface of how unlocking this missing data can create more positive outcomes for consumers and financial institutions alike." 

Pinwheel's additional payroll connectivity will allow more consumers to access products best designed to meet their needs, and banks and fintechs can serve a wider variety of customers they otherwise wouldn't have been able to without access to data that showcases their creditworthiness."

About Pinwheel
Pinwheel is the market-leading income and employment API. With Pinwheel, fintechs and financial institutions are empowered to build the next generation of financial products that will help create a fairer financial system. Pinwheel provides access to consumer-permissioned income & employment accounts and actionable insights that help them make sense of the data they need to tailor their tools and services for consumers. Pinwheel's platform has enterprise-grade security protocols to power connections to over 1,700 platforms (covering up to 100% of US workers who are paid via direct deposit), and over 1.5 million employers. From that point of connectivity, leading fintechs and financial institutions (such as Block's Cash App, Citizens Bank, Acorns, Credit Karma, and more) leverage us to power direct deposit switching, earned wage access, income & employment verification, and build innovative new products. Pinwheel is also a Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA), making the company the only provider in the space offering Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)-compliant income and employment data that lenders can use actively in decisioning. Pinwheel is trusted and funded with $77M by top-tier investors such as GGV, Coatue, First Round Capital, and more.

SOURCE Pinwheel