Data Aggregation Disclosure

A. Use of Plaid for Account-Linking and Aggregation Services

In connection with Betterment’s account-linking and voluntary data aggregation services, Betterment presents you with the option of using a third-party service called Plaid, which allows Betterment to retrieve certain financial account information regarding external accounts that you connect to your Betterment account. Your use of Plaid is entirely optional; you may opt to use a manual process to establish a linked bank account and/or aggregate your external accounts.

If you decide to use the optional Plaid services to link your bank account or other external accounts to your Betterment account, you authorize Betterment to act as your authorized agent and use Plaid to retrieve financial account information (“Account Information”) from the financial institutions you designate. Such Account Information includes, but is not limited to, your account balances and holdings, your bank account and routing numbers, certain transaction history, and data about cash outflows. You also grant Betterment the authority to (acting on your behalf) transmit your personal and financial information as reasonably necessary for Plaid to provide services to you. 

Betterment will not store your username and password for any of your external accounts. Plaid will provide Betterment an access token that exclusively allows Betterment to retrieve your Account Information. 

If you use the optional Plaid services, you acknowledge and agree that the information you provide to Plaid through Betterment will be treated by Plaid in accordance with its privacy policy (located at plaid.com/legal/#end-user-privacy-policy) and will be subject to Plaid’s terms and conditions, which may impose important limitations on the circumstances and degree of Plaid’s liability. 

B. Voluntary Aggregation of External Accounts

Betterment provides voluntary financial account aggregation services (“Aggregation Services”), which allow you to connect accounts at other financial institutions to your Betterment account.  As described above, you may use Plaid as part of the Aggregation Services, in which case Betterment will automatically retrieve certain financial account information from the financial institutions you designate (“Synced Accounts”). 

You understand and agree that Betterment’s recommendations and other services will not take into consideration Synced Accounts except as specifically disclosed in the Betterment interface. For more information about assumptions and limitations that apply to Synced Accounts and their use in projections or other advice, please see our Goal Projections and Advice Disclosure.

Betterment is not responsible for and cannot guarantee the accuracy of information that Betterment receives from or regarding your Synced Accounts. Betterment may not be able to foresee or anticipate technical or other difficulties that may result in failure to obtain data in connection with your use of the Aggregation Services. You further understand that Betterment typically will not attempt to refresh the data from the Synced Accounts more than once per day, and that Betterment may do so less often for a variety of reasons, including connectivity issues and access restrictions imposed by other parties. 

You understand that you are responsible for confirming the accuracy of Synced Account data through sources independent of Betterment. 

C. Use of Third-Party Account Aggregators

You may request that Betterment send personal data regarding your Betterment account to third parties outside of Betterment’s control (e.g., financial account aggregators). You may make such a request in a number of different ways, including, but not limited to, entering your Betterment login information through a third-party website. Betterment cannot control what those third parties may or may not do with your data. Betterment does not guarantee the accuracy and quality of your personal data that Betterment may send to third parties at your request.