JPMorgan Adds Plaid to Growing Roster of Private Company Research

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has begun research coverage of Plaid Inc. amid its broader push to expand its private research.

The move, which Bloomberg News reported Thursday (Aug. 7), comes as part of the financial service firm’s burgeoning efforts to provide analysis on prominent private companies as investor interest in the sector grows.

Founded in 2013, Plaid’s B2B data transfer network technology underpins a range of digital finance services. The company was valued at $6.1 billion in a funding round earlier this year.

JPMorgan analyst Jon Hacunda told the news outlet that a possible rewrite of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Rule 1033 may be “manageable for Plaid” and could turn out to be “possibly additive to network scale moat.”

Hacunda cited Plaid’s estimated 2024 revenue of about $300 million, a 25% increase from the prior year, noting that this scale gives it a competitive advantage, though he flagged potential challenges.

“In our view, risks to growth from potential bank fees for data access (free to date), customer concentration, and more diversified and niche competitors in new business lines loom larger,” Hacunda said.

Those concerns come amid heightened scrutiny over how FinTechs obtain consumer financial data. Earlier this year, JPMorgan told some FinTech clients it planned to charge for certain data flows. Shortly after, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said it was reconsidering an open-banking rule intended to ensure consumers could share their financial data without cost.

JPMorgan began publishing research on private companies with coverage of OpenAI. The reports don’t include ratings or price targets but aim to inform institutional clients about high-profile firms that are staying private for longer. Other closely watched FinTechs include Stripe Inc., valued at $91.5 billion, and Ramp Inc., valued at $22.5 billion.

A broad coalition of FinTechs and other businesses has petitioned President Trump to intervene, urging him to direct the CFPB to affirm that consumers, not banks, control their data and that it should be accessible at no cost. Banks, however, argue that these fees are necessary to cover the significant costs of IT and security investments required to facilitate data sharing through APIs.