Plaid offering aggregation of investment accounts with Quovo technology

Plaid’s $ 200 million acquisition of competing data aggregator Quovo is starting to pay off.

Plaid on Tuesday announced a new application programming interface that allows clients to extract data from investment accounts, including account balances, holdings and transactions. Previously, the capabilities of the data aggregator were limited to bank account information.

With the Investing API, built using Quovo technology, Plaid customers can start adding investing services to their applications.

Some of Plaid’s clients include several popular consumer-oriented fintech startups, such as cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, PayPal’s peer-to-peer payment app. Venmo, and the Robinhood scholarship app. Plaid also powers the digital products of several major banks.

Lowell Putnam, head of partnerships and former CEO of Quovo, did not specify which companies were looking to add investment services, but said he expects the lines between cash, lending and investments are starting to wane. Specifically, it would mean that more fintech apps would venture into digital wealth management and more traditional businesses would offer clients a complete view of their finances and even light financial planning.

(Read more: Financial firms need to standardize data so fintechs can build next-gen software)

“But that only works if you have a single source of real-time data to feed your algorithm,” Mr. Putnam said.

Mr Putnam said the new API will also benefit wealth management companies already using Quovo. Integrating investment account aggregation with Plaid has allowed his team to rethink several aspects of the technology based on client feedback.

“What we’ve seen is a consolidation of services between incumbents and startups,” Mr. Putnam said. For example, traditional registered investment advisers and robo-advisers are starting to add cash management functionality.

(Read more: FinTechs find new purpose in helping clients manage their cash flow)

“We’re going to see solutions come to market from the wealth space that looks really different than what happened before,” he said.