As someone who's worked in fintech for 10 years, I think this is a bad take. Out of all aggregators (what this is called), Plaid is by far the most open and privacy-forward.

First, they're transparent about being a 3rd party that's part of the flow (see https://plaid.com/blog/the-all-new-plaid-link/). It's clear it's Plaid, they use neutral colors and not the bank's, etc. They have a portal where you can manage your data (https://my.plaid.com/).

Second, they are very open about not selling data (unlike most of the their competitors). It's in their terms and their website (see https://plaid.com/how-we-handle-data/). I guess that could change, but from working with them I know it's part of their positioning so I'd be surprised if that changed.

Third, they've announced bank integrations and afaik they're moving to OAuth where the banks support it (I've seen this in the wild, but can't replicate right now). The key here is where banks support it. I think you have to look at the historical context: the banks do not want you to own your data as a consumer. They don't want fintech apps to exist. Having talked to banks about integrating directly with them, it's onerous and only the big players can do it. Plaid's fighting the good fight for fintech startups.

But yeah it's a less-than-ideal solution and it sucks that it doesn't work without creds flowing through and it's not clear regulators or banks will work to make it better. That sucks. I just think bashing on Plaid here is one-sided.

(throwaway account because I work in fintech)