This week, data aggregator Plaid confirmed its expansion to France, Ireland and Spain. Plaid will work with more than 80% of the consumer accounts in each country, a major step for the San Francisco-based company with the likes of BNP Paribas, Bank of Ireland, BBVA and Santander onboarding the technology.

Keith Grose, head of Plaid’s U.K. operations, said the company was expanding because it created a single interface for users to be able to connect to banks across multiple countries. Without Plaid or other data aggregators, fintech companies would have to create individual agreements with banks.

“Plaid provides an incredible amount of value to developers where they can actually focus on their core competency, the user experience and services they provide to users without having to worry about connectivity and data analytics,” he explained. 

Plaid’s data capabilities allow startups to connect to personal bank accounts so that users do not have to constantly enter their user credentials when accessing these services. The company has created a means for third-party fintechs to securely and seamlessly connect to bank data.

According to Grose, Plaid’s success in working with U.K. banks has enabled it to expand so quickly to other markets.

See also: With Plaid, Wells Fargo gives customers a new lever to control their data

“We expanded to the U.K. in June, and we’ve constantly been expanding since then,” Grose explained. “We’re continuing to think about what’s next and how we can provide the tools developers need wherever they are.” 

Meanwhile, in North America, this September, Wells Fargo entered into a data-sharing agreement with Plaid in an effort to safeguard customer data and, consequently, enhance customer control over their account information. Plaid also has data-sharing agreements big large banks, including JPMorgan Chase.

Plaid works with around 15,000 banks and claims to work with 80 percent of the largest fintech companies, including notable names like popular payments service Venmo, Acorns and Betterment. Plaid also has data-sharing agreements big banks, including JPMorgan Chase.

Plaid did not offer indications of its future expansion plans, but Grose confirmed it’s looking to launch in other markets.

“Plaid wants to be wherever there’s a thriving or developing fintech ecosystem where we want to provide great experiences to developers to help foster innovation [in that ecosystem],” he said. “We’re certainly looking at what are the next markets in Europe.” 

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