Square and Plaid Partner for ACH Payments

Plaid recently announced that it is working with Square to help U.S. businesses process ACH payments – debiting payment directly from customers’ bank accounts – without having to hold sensitive bank information.

Plaid provides infrastructure that allows consumers to securely connect their bank accounts to apps without sharing their bank login information with those apps.

The company said that Square will use a tokenized check system through Plaid that will allow customers to connect their bank accounts to enable payments to participating merchants.

“Now merchants can accept ACH payments through Square Invoices and developers can enable ACH payments through Square Web Payments SDK, without worrying about bank authentication or any managed payment complexities,” Plaid said in a blog post on its site.

The capability will help facilitate collections, particularly on high-value transactions, the company said. Square also plans to offer fee-free refunds on ACH payments.

“Payment flexibility, security, and transparency are core to Square’s Payment Platform,” Dennis Jarosch, head of payment platform at Square, said in the announcement.

“By offering ACH payments, we can help businesses process large transactions online at a low cost without worrying about bank authentication, compliance, or any managed payment complexities. We’re excited to offer ACH as one of many ways that businesses get paid fast and securely with Square.”

The companies touted reasons for offering ACH payments that include lower cost as well as less interruption in the payment process because bank account and routing numbers are more permanent than card data, which expires.