Plaid’s products enable consumers to conveniently share their financial information with thousands of apps and services such as Acorns, Betterment, Chime, Transferwise and Venmo. Today, one in four people with a US bank account have used Plaid to connect to more than 2,600 fintech developers across more than 11,000 financial institutions.

Visa, alongside rival card network Mastercard, joined a $250 million financing round in Plaid in September last year, that gave the company a $2.65 billion valuation. The $% billion price tag paid by Visa indicates a competitive bidding process to take over the company.

Previous investors in Plaid include the likes of Citi, Goldman Sachs and American Express.

Al Kelly, CEO and chairman of Visa, says: “Plaid is a leader in the fast growing fintech world with best-in-class capabilities and talent. The acquisition, combined with our many fintech efforts already underway, will position Visa to deliver even more value for developers, financial institutions and consumers.”

Plaid’s fintech-centric business opens new market opportunities for Visa both in the US and internationally, while providing a gateway to building closer relationships with fintech startups.

Says Kelly: “The combination of Visa and Plaid will put us at the epicenter of the fintech world, expanding our total addressable market and accelerating our long-term revenue growth trajectory.”

JPMorgan Chase was an early user of Plaid, opening up its account data to the company back in October 2018.

Gordon Smith, co-president, JPMorgan Chase and CEO of Consumer and Community Banking, comments: “We believe Visa’s acquisition of Plaid is an important development in giving consumers more security and control over how their financial data is used. Protecting customer data and helping them share that information safely has long been a top priority for Chase. We look forward to partnering with Visa to continue building a great experience for our shared customers.”

The company is also looking to expand beyond US borders, tapping in to the enthusiasm for Open Banking across Europe and other markets internationally. the company is opening a UK office to support European expansion and is initially supporting integrations with eight of the UK’s biggest banks and neobanks, giving British fintech businesses instant access to 70% of personal current accounts in the country.