Frustrated by clunky broker platforms, more and more investors are turning to portfolio trackers and investment apps powered by financial account aggregators. Not just for convenience—but for independence.
Unlike brokers, whose platforms are often designed to encourage trading, product sales, or asset gathering, portfolio trackers are structurally far less conflicted. Their job isn’t to sell you financial products – it’s to help you see clearly: across accounts, brokers, and asset classes.
Still, many investors hesitate. Handing over financial data can feel risky. What information do aggregators really access? How secure are these connections? And do you still need to share your login credentials?
In this article, we break down:
👉 What financial account aggregators actually do
👉 How modern security standards like OAuth protect your data
👉 What information you really expose (and what you don’t)
👉 And our top financial account aggregators for investment tracking
👉 Spoiler alert: you no longer need to share your username or password.
Why Financial Account Aggregators Matter
Most investors today don’t have a single account. They juggle multiple brokers, retirement accounts, crypto platforms—and sometimes family members’ portfolios on top.
Financial account aggregators such as Plaid or Snaptrade solve this fragmentation by securely consolidating data from multiple institutions into a single, unified view.
That unified view unlocks real value:
• Clearer portfolio oversight
• Better diversification analysis
• Easier detection of hidden fees or underperforming assets
• Smarter long-term planning
Crucially, when used inside broker-agnostic portfolio trackers, this data works for the investor—not for product distribution.
Why Financial Account Aggregation Exists at All
At its core, financial aggregation is built on a simple principle: your financial data belongs to you.
Open banking regulations in the US, Europe, and other regions have reinforced this idea, despite long-standing resistance from banks and brokers eager to keep users inside closed ecosystems.
Today, investors can legally and securely choose where their data is used—whether that’s for budgeting, portfolio tracking, tax optimization, or investment research—without being locked into a single institution’s interface.
How Financial Account Aggregation Works
When you connect an investment tracker to your accounts, a financial account aggregator establishes a secure, read-only connection to your bank, broker, or retirement provider.
Here’s what happens behind the scenes:
- You grant explicit consent
- The aggregator connects via an API (application programming interface)
- Data such as balances, transactions, and holdings is retrieved
- That data is standardized and passed to the app you’re using
With modern connection standards like OAuth, you no longer share your login credentials at all.
Major brokers—including Fidelity, Robinhood, Coinbase, E*TRADE, and Webull—now support OAuth-based connections.
How Secure Are Financial Account Aggregators?
Reputable financial account aggregators are highly secure, often matching—or exceeding—the security standards used by banks and brokers themselves.
Key safeguards include:
• No credential sharing when OAuth is used
• Encrypted data in transit and at rest
• Permission-based access (only the data you approve)
• Regular audits and regulatory compliance
No system is entirely risk-free. But in practice, modern aggregators using OAuth and open-banking APIs significantly reduce the most common security risks associated with screen scraping and credential storage.
Why OAuth Is a Game Changer
OAuth (Open Authorization) fundamentally changes how financial data is shared.
Instead of handing over your username and password:
• You authenticate directly with your financial institution
• The aggregator receives a limited-scope access token
• Credentials never leave the bank or broker
That means:
• Lower risk of credential theft
• Better privacy
• Easy revocation of access at any time
For investors, OAuth is the single biggest leap forward in financial data security over the past decade.
What Information Do You Actually Share?
When using a financial account aggregator, you only share what you explicitly approve. Typically, that includes:
• Account balances
• Transaction history
• Holdings and portfolio positions
• Basic account metadata (institution name, account type)
You do not share:
• Usernames
• Passwords
• Full account numbers
And you stay in control: access can be revoked at any time through your bank or the aggregator.
The Best Financial Account Aggregators for Investment Tracking
Market leader Plaid may have become synonymous with streamlined, secure data linking of bank accounts. However, a wave of challengers are stepping up, offering their unique features and product focus.
Whether you’re already using Plaid or just exploring your options, it’s worth knowing about these alternatives.
1. Plaid
Founded in 2013, Plaid is the market leader in the US providing market-leading institution coverage with more than 11,000 financial institutions in the U.S. It plays in all financial services domains from budgeting to investments.
Pros:
Strong track record: In a domain that can still be described as early stage, Plaid has one of the longest track records.
Coverage: Plaid’s has one of the best coverage levels in the US. As of the latest count, it connects fintechs and other players in the financial services space to over 11,000 institutions.
Cons:
Lack of focus and data quality: In certain domains, such as investments, Plaid lacks focus and risks being overtaken by more focused players, such as Snaptrade.
2. Envestnet Yodlee
Envestnet Yodlee is often referred to as the pioneer of financial data aggregation. Like Plaid, Yodlee plays in a wide range of financial services applications and covers a vast network of global financial institutions.
Pros
Broad Global Coverage: Yodlee has links with over 20,000 global financial institutions and financial service providers, providing better global reach compared to Plaid.
Experience: With over 20 years of experience in the market, Yodlee has acquired a deep level of sophistication and robustness in its product offering.
Cons:
Tech debt: Yodlee’s technology and interfaces is less modern and user-friendly compared to some of its competitors.
3. Snaptrade
Snaptrade is one of the more focused players among financial account aggregators with a strong focus on investments. To our knowledge, it leads the market in OAuth coverage by number of investment accounts in the US.
Pros:
Leader in investments: By making the deliberate choice to focus on investments, Snaptrade has managed to become the market leader in investment account aggregation, serving clients with OAuth connections across most of the large brokerage names from Fidelity to Robinhood to Vanguard.
Cons:
Limited coverage: Snaptrade only provides very limited coverage of financial data outside of investment accounts.
4. Akoya
Akoya, jointly owned by Fidelity and 11 major banks—including Bank of America, Capital One, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo—is used by both fintechs and large financial institutions.
Pros:
High Reliability: Thanks to a focus on API-based connections, Akoya delivers a high degree of reliability
Data Security: Akoya leads peers when it comes to risk management and data security.
Cons:
Limited Coverage: Being owned by 11 banks, Akoya lacks independence and thus moves much slower when it comes to enlarging its coverage
5. Finicity
Finicity, which is owned by Mastercard, is a financial account aggregator that is particularly popular among lenders for use as part of the lending process. Their service is known to focus on data privacy and compliance.
Pros:
Privacy and Transparency: Finicity places a significant emphasis on the user’s ability to grant and revoke access to data at any time, giving users a lot control over their data with the goal to protect sensitive customer data
Owned and supported by Mastercard: In Mastercard, Finicity has the backing of a giant player in the financial services space.
Cons:
Frequent Connectivity Problems: User complaints in forums suggest inferior connection reliability Limited Coverage: Being owned by 11 banks, Akoya lacks independence and thus moves much slower when it comes to enlarging its coverage
The Bottom Line
Financial account aggregators unlock a level of transparency and innovation that traditional banks and brokers simply weren’t built to offer.
Combined with broker-agnostic portfolio trackers, they allow investors to:
- See all their assets in one place
- Make better, less biased decisions
- Retain control over their financial data
Backed by OAuth and adopted by major financial institutions, modern aggregation is both secure and investor-friendly. As open banking continues to mature, the benefits clearly outweigh the risks.