




Members are asking how to link their FCU account to popular investment apps (Coinbase, Robinhood, etc.). Many of these apps use a service called Plaid which asks for your online banking credentials (red flag) and asks you to disable two factor authentication (red flag) and security questions (red flag). WE DO NOT advise that our members use this service to link their accounts. It is ALWAYS a bad idea to use your online banking credentials for a third party service and especially when they ask you to disable security features. If they have a data breach, your online credentials are compromised leaving you open to massive fraud where a bad actor logs into your account and transfers out all of your money. Instead, you can link your account manually. These apps don’t like for you to link your account manually so you really have to dig to find out how to do this. Here is an approach using Robinhood as an example:
- Log into your Robinhood account (app or web browser)
- Navigate to your account settings
- Navigate to link bank account
- Plaid lists all of the big banks or you can search for the CU. Here’s the trick: type in a garbage word…an example…. literally type in “garbage”
- The search won’t find anything and will then display the “link manually” option in tiny letters at the bottom
- Tap the link manually and enter the routing number and the account number
This is the best way to link an account. It still poses a security risk but it is far less than entering your online banking credentials. This method works with many other apps as well.
