Plaid names former Meta exec as its new payments head

John Anderson is the new head of payments.

The startup has begun to offer more than its core product. Identity and income verification was added earlier this year. It feels like payments is an evolution of its business.

Anderson explained in an interview that while Plaid will be personally facilitating payments through its Transfer offering, it will also continue working with its dozens of payments partners. It's goal is to give consumers more options when it comes to bank payments.

There has been a lot of innovation on point of sale in the last 10 years, but it's still not a good experience for payments. This is where we're concentrating.

Anderson pointed out that Plaid has been involved in digital payments for a long time. The company worked with more than 50 payment companies.

Plaid has a variety of services for its clients. The goal of the modular data products is to maximize choice for its customers and toultimately expand the use of bank payments.

Anderson said that same-day ACH grew by 75% year over year with numbers in the trillions. Plaid works with a broad network of payment partners, and there is a lot of market for many players. We intend to invest in that strategy and environment.

Anderson said that Plaid builds products that help companies have more cost-effective, efficient and flexible bank payments.

He said that much of the work is done by partners. The approach we take to payments is an ecosystems approach. We are working together to innovate and create better infrastructure that is safer, smarter and quicker for everyone.

In May, Stripe unveiled a new product of its own. To give that company's customers a way to connect directly to their customers' bank accounts, to access financial data to speed up or run certain kinds of transactions, is exactly what Plaid has done historically.

Anderson said that it usually took several days for an ACH transfer to complete.

He said that it provides time to assess returns and fraud. If you want to be able to have customers fund their account instantly and immediately start trading, 1-2 days clearing time feels like a lifetime.

Trying to solve that challenge led to the creation of Plaid's Signal offering, which uses machine learning to analyze more than 1,000 risk factors and provide scores and insights that Plaid says provide more certainty that a transaction will settle.

He said that they wanted to use data signals to identify low-risk events. We can help companies build more real-time funding solutions so their consumers can get going on their financial goals immediately.

During this time, Signal was a pilot customer. WeBull and Uphold have incorporated Signal into their risk models.

Over 3 million transactions are de-risked each month. More customers will be able to use this service to expand the applicability of bank payments and transfers.

He said that Plaid is partnering on real time payment rails.

Anderson said that the RTP and FedNow products are designed to help drive further adoption of bank payments because of the speed and certainty of settlement.

Anderson said that the company wants tounlock the next phase of bank payments with a focus on a great consumer experience, adapting Signal for emerging risk and fraud, and other activities that will accelerate the adoption of real-time payments in the U.S.

Anderson explained in an interview why he joined Plaid. He was the head of payments and commerce at Meta for 10 years before leaving in March.

Anderson said he was drawn to the space because finance is at the center of his life. Financial access is an "uneven playing field getting ever more bumpy" according to the executive.

The common thread is that Plaid is there in the background helping them build secure data accessibility, fast payments and manage risk and compliance.

It isn't Anderson's first attempt at financial technology. He developed an app called GroupCard that was acquired by InComm. He used to work at eBay in the payments department.

He said that he had experience with the challenges that many of Plaid's customers face today. I came to Plaid because I wanted to build durable products and a societal impact that my children will be proud of.