Microsoft has teamed up with Plaid to let people automatically import their bank and credit card account data into a new personal finance tool called Money in Excel.
Available to Microsoft 365 subscribers, initially in the US, the new offering promises to make it easy to manage, track, and analyse users' money and spending all in one place — the Excel spreadsheet software.
Plaid, the bank data sharing startup recently acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion, is powering the process that lets users import transactions and account balances automatically.
Money in Excel works to help people improve spending habits by providing personalised insights on monthly outgoings and proactive alerts about price changes for things like recurring payments, bank fees, and overdraft warnings.
Eric Sager, COO, Plaid, says: "Plaid has always focused on powering innovators. To date that has consisted primarily of developers at startups like Venmo, Square, Acorns, Blend, Dave and others.
"However, it might surprise people to learn that we are talking to more than 25% of Fortune 100 companies about serious fintech initiatives. Like Microsoft, many of these larger, tech-forward companies have little to no role in financial services today, but will likely help shape our fintech reality for decades to come given their consumer footprint.”