- Plaid and ID.me are teaming up to help US government agencies verify both benefit recipients’ identities and ownership of the financial accounts receiving payments.
- The partnership combines identity and account verification into a single flow, helping agencies reduce manual processes, duplicate payments, and the risk of funds being diverted.
- Connecting identity with payment destination could help modernize government benefits, enabling legitimate recipients to receive funds faster while strengthening fraud prevention and auditability.
Plaid has selected digital identity network ID.me to enable US government agencies to verify both the person requesting a benefit and the associated financial account receiving it.
Plaid is leveraging ID.me’s digital identity wallet to solve the identity piece and is using its own financial account verification tools to help state and federal agencies verify that the account receiving a benefit payment belongs to the recipient before funds move.
“Identity verification tells an agency who is asking to be paid, but it does not tell them where the money is going,” said ID.me CEO and Founder Blake Hall. “That gap is where benefits go missing, and it’s costing our government and everyday Americans billions of dollars. Through our partnership with Plaid, agencies would be able to confirm the account belongs to the verified person before a dollar moves, and eligible people get paid faster.”
For beneficiaries, the partnership allows users to verify their identity using ID.me and securely link their bank account, eliminating the need to upload bank statements or wait for manual verification. For agencies, account ownership information is sourced directly from the recipient’s financial institution and matched with their verified identity before funds are released. The solution creates a dated record linking the verified recipient with the account that received the payment, while limiting the financial information shared with the government.
The partnership will help agencies consolidate legacy capabilities, reduce the possibility of duplicating payments in error, and make it easier for beneficiaries to receive funds they are entitled to.
“For too long, getting benefits to the people who qualify for them has meant a slow, manual process that fraudsters have learned to exploit. Agencies have gotten very good at confirming who someone is. What’s been missing is the same confidence about where the money actually lands,” said Plaid COO Eric Sager. “By partnering with ID.me, we’re closing that gap so eligible people get paid in minutes, and every dollar reaches the person it was meant for.”
Fraud prevention in government payments has long relied on multiple, often disconnected layers of verification. Identity verification alone is not enough if agencies cannot also verify the destination of the funds. By connecting those two layers, Plaid and ID.me are helping government agencies modernize benefit delivery in a way that could make payments both faster for legitimate recipients and harder to divert fraudulently.
Photo by Melisa Uygun
