Judge Orders Plaid to Pay $58 Million to Settle Allegations of Selling Customer Data
federal court judge on Wednesday approved banking app Plaid’s $58 million privacy class action settlement after consumers claimed the company had harvested and sold their financial data without consent.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu’s order found that 11 plaintiffs from five lawsuits, led by James Cottle, won payment for all impacted customers whose data was sold by the tech startup Plaid using their banking login credentials. Plaid provides bank “linking” and verification services for fintech apps that consumers use to send and receive money from financial accounts such as Venmo, Coinbase, Cash App and Stripe.
Cottle’s original complaint said when he signed up for a Venmo account in 2019, he did not know he was sharing his banking credentials with Plaid. He said the company hid the fact that it was accessing his sensitive financial information by prompting him to login to his bank to set up a Venmo account.
