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TD Bank accuses Plaid of duping customers by ripping off its trademarks

Canada's TD Bank has filed a trademark infringement suit against Plaid, accusing the data aggregator of deceptively mimicking its log-in screen, colour scheme and logo to trick users into entering their financial details.

4 comments

TD Bank accuses Plaid of duping customers by ripping off its trademarks

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

In filings made through a New Jersey court, the bank said that Plaid's interface "dupes" consumers into believing they are interacting with a trusted financial institution.

"In reality, however, consumers are unwittingly giving their login credentials to the defendant, who takes the information, stores it on its servers, and uses it to mine consumers' bank records for valuable data (e.g., transaction histories, loans, etc.), which the defendant monetises by selling to third parties," TD alleges.

TD Bank has filed for a cease and desist order and wants the bank to hand over all profits accrued from using its trademarks. The bank is also seeking $2 million in damages for each type of service sold and distributed by Plaid - which was acquired by Visa for $5.2 billion earlier this year.

Visa and Plaid have so far declined to comment on the action.

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Comments: (4)

A Finextra member 

If anyone had any doubts about their personal data being used as a commodity here's the proof that it is! No mention of the fact that the consumers whose data was unknowingly captured by Plaid and sold to third parties plan to take legal action. They should!

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Earlier this year, I asked if what Plaid did was phishing and wondered why banks didn't stop Plaid already. I now have the answers: (1) It is phishing (2) Had they nipped Plaid in the bud, banks wouldn't be able to claim damages, which they now are able to.

A Finextra member 

Makes you wonder why Visa bought them for $5.2 BILLION! Seems way over the odds to me - unless they're (visa) just trying to gobble up the potential comnpetition.

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Well, a lot of people wondered why Google paid $1.5B for YouTube and Facebook, $1B for Instagram; and YT and IG are reportedly worth $150B and $100B respectively today! There's a reason why those guys make the big bucks:)  

From what I understood of the brilliant Stratechery article linked in my abovementioned tweet, Visa acquired Plaid to gain early mover advantage in Open Finance / Interbank Rails enabled by Plaid, which complements the Card Rails owned by Visa.

Re. "consumers whose data was unknowingly captured by Plaid" in the previous comment, that's not true. Consumers very well submitted their data knowingly. And it's not just Plaid. Nearly 10M bank account holders submitted similar data to PFM pioneer MINT 10 years ago. #GoFigure.  

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