Account validation with Plaid

When accepting ACH Direct Debit payments, Nacha requires you to validate that the shopper's bank account details are correct, if it is a consumer account. To make this validation easier for you, we have partnered with Plaid. Plaid collects the shopper's permission to connect their account to Plaid, and verifies the account details directly with the shopper's bank.

Benefits:

• Smooth shopper experience. Shoppers link their account using Plaid Link. Shoppers don't need to search for their account number and routing number.
• You send us the shopper's Plaid processor token instead of having to deal with sensitive account details.
• Plaid collects the shopper's permission to store their details and check their account balance.
• Real-time balance check. This reduces the chance that transactions are reversed because of insufficient funds. It can also save shoppers having to pay overdraft fees or non-sufficient funds fees.

If you don't want to validate the account with Plaid, you need to collect the shopper's bank account number, bank routing number, and account holder name, and pass these details in the payment request.

Current limitations

• Account validation with Plaid is supported for the following online payments integrations:

  • API-only integration.
  • Web Drop-in or Web Components integration using the /payments endpoint.

  You can't use validation with Plaid if your integration uses the /sessions endpoint.

• Depending on their bank, shoppers may need to re-authenticate with Plaid after a number of months. The token itself doesn't change, but you need to re-initialize it.

How it works

1. The shopper selects ACH Direct Debit on your payment form.
2. You check if the shopper has already connected their account with Plaid.
3. If the shopper's account isn't connected to Plaid yet:
   • You direct the shopper to Plaid Link.
   • You make a series of API requests to Plaid to get the shopper's Plaid processor token.
4. You make a payment with the shopper's Plaid processor token and optionally include parameters to check the customer's account balance. We use the shopper's Plaid processor token to validate their account details with Plaid.

The following diagram illustrates this flow.

For more insights, see Plaid's documentation on the Plaid - Adyen partnership.

Before you begin

1. Reach out to your Adyen contact to configure your Adyen account for collaboration with Plaid.
2. Make sure that you have set up your back end implementation.
3. Add ACH Direct Debit in your test Customer Area.
4. Create an account with Plaid, and complete an application profile and a company profile.
   Plaid will give you a client_id and a secret to make API calls to Plaid.

Check the shopper's processor token

It is possible that with a previous payment to you, the shopper connected their account to Plaid and you saved their Plaid processor token. If you don't have the shopper's Plaid processor token, you need to direct the shopper to the Plaid Link app and get their token.

Proceed as follows:

1. In your POST /paymentMethods request, make sure to use:

   • currency: set to USD.
   • countryCode: set to US.

2. When the shopper selects ACH Direct Debit, on your payment form collect:

   • The account owner's name.
   • The shopper's billing address (optional).
   • Any other details to be able to look up this shopper in your database.

3. Based on the provided details, look up the shopper in your database and check if you have their Plaid processor token.

4. If you have the shopper's Plaid processor token, proceed to make a payment.

5. If you don't have the shopper's Plaid processor token, get it from Plaid:

   1. Make a series of requests to Plaid from your backend:

      • A POST /link/token/create request to initialize the Plaid Link app and get a public_token.
      • A POST /item/public_token/exchange request with the public_token to get an access_token.
      • A POST /processor/token/create request with the access_token to get the shopper's processor_token.

      For the details, see Plaid's instructions for Adyen integrations.

   2. Save the shopper's processor token, and proceed to make a payment.

Make a payment

The ACH Direct Debit payment request must include the shopper's Plaid processor token. Optionally you can add parameters to check if the account balance meets specific conditions before trying an authorisation.

Proceed as follows:

1. From your server, make a POST /payments request.

   Specify the following parameters:

   Parameter	Required	Description
   paymentMethod.type		Set to ach.
   paymentMethod.ownerName		The account holder name that you collected on your payment form when the shopper selected ACH Direct Debit.
   billingAddress		The account owner's address information.
   additionalData		The shopper's Plaid processor token and any balance check parameters you want to use.

   These are the Plaid parameters you can use in additionalData:

   Parameter	Description
   plaid.processorToken	The shopper's Plaid processor token that you received from Plaid and stored in your database. Required for validation with Plaid.
   plaid.balanceCheck	A string value set to true if you want us to check the account balance.
   plaid.minimumAmount	A string value indicating the minimum amount available on the account, in minor units. Use only with plaid.balanceCheck set to true. For example, if the balance must be USD 10 or more, specify 1000. You can also use this in combination with plaid.balanceMultiplier.
   plaid.balanceMultiplier	A string value indicating the condition that the account balance must at least be X times the payment amount. If plaid.minimumAmount is specified, indicates the condition that the account balance must at least be X times the specified minimum amount. For example, if the balance must be at least 2.5 times USD 10, set plaid.balanceMultiplier to 2.5 and set plaid.minimumAmount to 1000.

2. Check the /payments response.

   The additionalData object contains the validation result:

   Parameter	Description
   achdirectdebit.dateOfSignature	The date that the shopper gave permission to collect direct debit payments from their account.
   achdirectdebit.mandateId	The identification of the shopper's permission to collect direct debit payments from their account. This ID is the same as the PSP reference of the payment.
   achdirectdebit.sequenceType	Indicates if the direct debit payments are recurring. Possible values: OneOff, First.
   availableBalanceValue	The account balance. Only included if the request has plaid.balanceCheck true. Note that the balance is not in minor units.
   bankSummary	The last four digits of the shopper's bank account.
   bankVerificationResult	The result of the account validation and balance checks: Passed. If the validation fails, you receive an error message.
   bankVerificationResultRaw	The details of the account validation result. For example: Passed: Available Balance greater than threshold if you asked for a balance check with conditions. Passed: Routing number and Account number successfully retrieved if you didn't ask for a balance check.
   plaidProcessorToken	The shopper's Plaid processor token passed in the request.

   Other parameters in the response include:

   Parameter	Description
   pspReference	Our unique reference for the payment.
   resultCode	Authorised. This means that the payment has been successfully received by Adyen. However, it may take up to 5 business days to know whether the payment was authorized by the bank.

   If you don't get an Authorised response, refer to Handle Plaid validation errors.

The payment is sent to the bank. If the payment is successful, it will appear in the Settlement details report. If it fails, you will receive a CHARGEBACK webhook.

Handle Plaid validation errors

If the Plaid validation failed, you get an error response like the following example.

Make sure your integration can handle the following validation error responses:

Present the payment result

Use the resultCode that you received in the /payments response to present the payment result to your shopper.

The resultCode values you can receive for ACH Direct Debit are:

Chargebacks

The ACH network is unable to provide real-time authorizations. This means that a payment can be reversed because of insufficient funds after the payment is authorized. Business-to-business transactions can be reversed if your customer's business account doesn't have Adyen's ACH Company ID in their allowlist. Also, customers can ask for a refund up to 60 days after the payment is settled to your account.

If an ACH Direct Debit payment is returned, your Settlement details report will show a credit and a corresponding debit, and you receive a CHARGEBACK webhook with a chargebackReasonCode.

You cannot defend ACH Direct Debit chargebacks. Depending on the reason code, it may be allowed to retry the payment. For an overview of the chargeback process and reason codes, see ACH Direct Debit chargebacks.

Test and go live

To test the connection with Plaid, use the Plaid sandbox. Optionally use the Plaid GitHub repo to test specific scenarios.

Before you go live, create a Plaid developer account and run tests in the Plaid Developer environment.

See also