Bring your Plaid bank connections to Straddle
This guide provides a detailed walkthrough on integrating Plaid with Straddle for fast and secure account-to-account payments. By leveraging Plaid’s bank connections and Straddle’s payment infrastructure, you can offer a seamless and secure payment experience to your users.
Before you begin, ensure you have:
Enable Straddle’s Plaid integration in your Plaid account settings. If you need assistance with this step, reach out to your Account Manager with Plaid.
Customize Plaid Link’s account selection to only be “enabled for one account.”
1. Set up Plaid Link for user bank account connection
Integrate Plaid Link into your frontend to allow users to securely connect their bank account. Plaid Link is the front-end module that facilitates the connection between the user’s bank account and your application.
2. Obtain an access token from Plaid
Once the user connects their bank account using Plaid Link, Plaid will return a public token. Exchange this public token for an access token via Plaid’s API, which will allow you to access the user’s account information.
3. Use the access token to get a Straddle processor token from Plaid
With the access token obtained from Plaid, request a Straddle processor token from Plaid. This token allows you to link the user’s bank account to Straddle’s payment processing system.
4. Use the Straddle processor token to create a secure payment token via Straddle's Bridge API
Pass the Straddle processor token to Straddle’s Bridge API. Straddle will return a paykey
which is linked to the user’s bank account, allowing future transactions to be processed.
5. Store and use the paykey for future transactions
Store the paykey
securely in your system. Use this paykey
to create charges, initiate payments, or perform other transactions via Straddle’s API in the future.
To get the most out of the Straddle integration with Plaid, be sure to enable the following core services in your Plaid dashboard
Once that’s complete, remember to style and customize your Link application UI - it’s especially important to define a “use case” in the Data Transparency Messaging configuration.
Data transparency messaging ensures compliance with the latest open-banking regulations. Check out this article on CFPB’s 1033 Final Rule to learn more.
Plaid Link is the client-side component that your users will interact with in order to link their accounts to Plaid and allow you to access their accounts via the Plaid API.
Plaid Link will handle credential validation, multi-factor authentication, and error handling for each institution that Plaid supports. Link is supported via SDKs for all modern browsers and platforms, including web, iOS, Android, as well as via React Native, along with community-supported wrappers for Flutter, Angular, and Vue.
For webview-based integrations or integrations that don’t have a frontend, Plaid also provides a drop-in Hosted Link integration mode.
To try Link, see Plaid Link Demo.
We’ll do our best here to give you a rundown of the steps required to start building on Plaid and connect to Straddle. However, you should always treat Plaid’s official documentation as the ultimate source of truth during integration with their platform.
link_token
Now you’re ready to start building. In order to integrate with Plaid Link, you will first need to create a link_token
. A link_token
is a short-lived, one-time use token that is used to authenticate your app with Link and initiate a session for a user.
To create one, make a /link/token/create
request with your client_id
, secret
, and a few other required parameters from your app server.
View the /link/token/create
documentation for a full list of configurations.
To see your client_id
and secret
, visit the Plaid Dashboard.
Once you have a link_token
, all it takes is a few lines of client-side JavaScript to initialize Link. Then, in the onSuccess
callback, you can call a simple server-side handler to exchange the Link public_token
for a Plaid access_token
and — ultimately —a Straddle processor_token
.
Once you have the access token, you can use it to obtain a Straddle processor token from Plaid This token is specific to Straddle and allows secure communication between Plaid and Straddle.
Note that straddle
(that’s us!) is the specific processor you’re requesting the token for. This tells Plaid to generate a token compatible with Straddle’s systems.
Once you have obtained the Straddle processor token from Plaid, you can use it to create a paykey via Straddle’s Bridge API. Here’s the correct HTTP request format:
Replace YOUR_STRADDLE_API_KEY
with your actual Straddle API key, and fill in the appropriate values for customer_id
and plaid_token
. The metadata
field is optional but can be useful for storing additional information related to the Plaid account.
The Straddle API will respond with a paykey object. Here’s an example of what you might receive:
Note that the source
field is set to plaid
in this case, indicating that the paykey was created using a Plaid token.
You should store this paykey
securely for future use in transactions. When it’s time to get paid , create a charge and Straddle will automatically attempt to verify the account’s balance prior to origination.
Token Security: Never expose Plaid access tokens or Straddle processor tokens to the frontend. Always handle these server-side.
Error Handling: Implement robust error handling for both Plaid and Straddle API calls.
Metadata Usage: Use the metadata field to store relevant information, such as the Plaid account ID, for future reference.
Token Refreshing: Be aware of token expiration policies for both Plaid and Straddle. Implement token refresh mechanisms as needed.
Compliance: Ensure you’re complying with both Plaid and Straddle’s terms of service and data handling requirements.
Logging: Implement comprehensive logging for debugging and audit purposes, but be careful not to log sensitive information.
Invalid Processor Token: Ensure you’re using straddle'
as the processor when requesting the token from Plaid.
Authentication Errors: Double-check your API keys for both Plaid and Straddle.
Expired Tokens: If you’re getting authentication errors, your tokens might have expired. Implement a token refresh mechanism.
Account Not Supported: Some bank accounts may not be supported for ACH transactions. Handle these cases gracefully in your UI.
Rate Limiting: Be aware of rate limits on both Plaid and Straddle APIs. Implement appropriate backoff strategies if you hit these limits.
By following this guide, you should be able to successfully integrate Plaid with Straddle, leveraging the strengths of both platforms to provide a robust, secure payment solution for your users.