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Comment by chao- | Hacker News Reader

Refinancing a loan I passed on the lowest possible rate I could get, for a slightly higher one, specifically because they used Plaid.

I'm not the most privacy-focused individual, not nearly as paranoid as I could be, but Plaid's model is an OBVIOUS step too far.

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Depending on the rate difference, I'd be tempted to setup a 'burner' checking account at a separate financial institution and just auto-transfer the loan amount from my primary bank to the burner every month.

That generally wouldn’t pass underwriting. They want the account the money is coming from to be the account with history and money in it already.

Really? Both times I got a loan they wanted bank statements from all of my main accounts and verifiable income history, but they didn’t care that I was paying from an account that I had just opened for the specific purpose of paying the loan.

same. maybe it just depends on the bank, but i can't imagine why that would matter at all. they have the whole picture of your financial history, generally. what does it matter whether that one bank account has only enough in it to pay off the loan every month.

I'm not OP, but I assumed from their post that they meant the loan provider wanted Plaid access in order to perform underwriting - as in give us access to your account(s) so we can pull your banking history via an automated manner instead of sending PDFs.

Could be wrong though, as I never considered it'd be used for payments at all.

My bank's underwriter/loan officer actually said to get the best rate with them to specifically setup an account with them (They aren't my day to day bank) and just use it for my house payment. For the past decade the only transactions it has ever seen has been the direct deposit and the auto-withdraw for the mortgage.

BMO offered the ability to link plaid and some other company to automate it vs me sending updated statements manually. I chose manual. I hate that this is the only option for convenience.

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