Let's say, for sake of argument, one day a Plaid user logs on to their bank account and discovers missing funds. Does the bank get to say Plaid users automatically lost consumer protections under e.g. Reg E and similar by sharing account credentials? Not an expert but it seems to me the answer is probably yes.
That's why Europe's move to require a modern, unified API for banks, planned to start this fall, is such a great thing. https://www.openbankingeurope.eu/ Most banks' incentives are not aligned with giving data to third parties ever. This is a case where hands-on regulation to compel banks to participate, and thereby clearly assigning legal liabilities, is such a great thing. Otherwise, we know for a fact that providers like plaid will fill that gap in functionality, kindof like the economics of black markets.
Banking in the US is so horrible at the moment. there’s an immense opportunity for someone to come through and give a better consumer experience, but I fear the barriers to entry are far too high. I had high hopes for Simple.com, but they ended up destroying about every useful feature they had and falling way short of the mark...
There was a clever hack someone posted here a while ago about using the email alerts feature to essentially get a read-only feed of transactions from a bank account. It does require you to parse the email and build your own system, so it wouldn't work for most people.