The short version
- Link helps you connect your financial accounts to software you choose. You choose the route: Link’s own connection (Link Direct) or a third-party provider such as Plaid, Stripe, Teller or GoCardless, where that provider covers your bank. We name the route before you approve anything.
- With Link Direct, you sign in to your bank in Link’s flow. We exchange your sign-in details for an access token and do not keep your password by default.
- Some banks offer no way to renew access with a token. For those banks only, Link must keep your sign-in details to keep the connection working. We tell you before you connect. You must agree to it, and you can choose a different provider instead.
- You choose which accounts and which types of data the receiving app gets. You can see each connection and disconnect it.
- We do not sell your personal information, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use it to show you ads.
- The Maxint Privacy Policy still applies. This notice adds what is specific to Link.
Questions: privacy@maxint.com.
1. About this notice
Link (link.maxint.com) is a bank-connectivity service provided by Maxint Inc. (“Maxint”, “we”, “us” or “our”). It is also called Maxint Link.
This notice supplements the Maxint Privacy Policy. The Maxint Privacy Policy applies to your use of Link. This notice explains what is specific to Link. If this notice conflicts with the Maxint Privacy Policy, this notice controls for Link.
Some words used here:
- Link Direct: Link’s own connection to a bank. It uses the bank’s own production APIs, the ones its app and online banking use. It does not scrape web pages. A Link Direct connection does not mean the bank has partnered with, approved or endorsed Maxint or Link.
- Third-party provider: an independent company that connects accounts through its own sign-in flow. Today these are Plaid, Stripe Financial Connections, Teller and GoCardless Bank Account Data, each only where it supports your bank and region.
- Receiving App: the app, website or service you connect your accounts to through Link. The Maxint app is a Receiving App. Other apps from independent developers can also be Receiving Apps.
- Account Data: the information Link retrieves from your financial institution through a connection, such as account and routing numbers, balances, transactions, account-holder identity and investment holdings, that you authorize a Receiving App to receive.
These words have the same meaning as in the Link Terms.
This notice does not cover:
- Receiving Apps. Each Receiving App handles the Account Data it receives under its own privacy policy. Read it before you connect.
- Third-party providers. If you choose a third-party provider, it handles your information under its own privacy policy. Links are in section 5.
- Your bank. Your bank handles your information under its own privacy policy.
2. Who is responsible for your information
In plain words: sometimes Maxint decides why and how your information is used. In those cases we are responsible for it (the “controller”, or “business” under US state privacy laws). Other times we handle it only for a Receiving App, on that app’s instructions. In those cases the app is responsible, and we act as its “processor” or “service provider”.
| Situation | Maxint’s role | Whose privacy policy applies |
|---|---|---|
| You visit link.maxint.com, read the docs, try the demo or subscribe to product updates | Controller | This notice and the Maxint Privacy Policy |
| You use Link within a Maxint service, such as the Maxint app (how Link is available today) | Controller | This notice, the Maxint Privacy Policy and the Maxint App Terms |
| You connect through Link Direct: your sign-in details, access tokens, connection records and the choices you make in Link’s flow | Controller | This notice and the Maxint Privacy Policy |
| Link retrieves Account Data and delivers it to a third-party Receiving App you authorize | Processor or service provider to that Receiving App | The Receiving App’s privacy policy. Our processing is governed by our Data Processing Addendum, which covers Link |
| You choose a third-party provider (Plaid, Stripe, Teller or GoCardless) | The provider handles your sign-in and its own copy of your data independently. For the data the provider returns to Link, Maxint is a processor or service provider to the Receiving App, or the controller when the Receiving App is a Maxint service | The provider’s privacy policy, and this notice for what Link receives |
When we act for a Receiving App, we send requests about that app’s data to the app. We help the app answer them as described in our Data Processing Addendum.
3. Information Link collects
3.1 Your bank sign-in details (Link Direct)
How it works. When you connect through Link Direct, you sign in within Link’s flow. You use the same sign-in details you use for your bank online, such as a username and password. If your bank asks for a one-time passcode, an answer to a security question or another verification step, Link passes it to your bank in the same way and does not keep it. Link sends these details to your bank to sign in. Your bank issues an access or session token. Link uses that token to retrieve the Account Data you authorize.
By default, we do not keep your sign-in details. Once the token is issued, the original sign-in details are not retained. Your sign-in details pass through Maxint’s servers to your bank. They are held in memory only for the duration of the sign-in request, and are never written to storage, logs, error reports, analytics or backups, except under the exception below.
The exception: banks with no way to renew access. Some banks do not offer a usable way to renew access with a token. For those banks only, Link must keep your sign-in details to keep your connection working.
- We tell you before you connect, on the screen where you choose how to connect.
- You must explicitly acknowledge it before we keep anything.
- You can choose a third-party provider instead, where one supports your bank.
- Kept sign-in details are stored encrypted and used only to keep that connection working. We delete them when you disconnect the account or close your Link or Maxint account, whichever Receiving App you connected to.
- Retained sign-in details are protected as described on the Link Security page.
- Retained sign-in details are never shared with the Receiving App.
3.2 Access and session tokens
We keep the access or session tokens your bank or third-party provider issues, so we can retrieve Account Data for as long as your connection is active. They are protected by the safeguards in section 7 of the Maxint Privacy Policy, including encryption at rest. The Link Security page describes further protections.
3.3 Account Data
You choose which accounts and which types of data to share with the Receiving App. What is available depends on your bank and the route you choose.
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Account and routing details | Account name and type, institution, account number and routing number. By default, Receiving Apps receive masked account numbers. A Receiving App receives full account and routing numbers only when it requests them and you approve |
| Balances | Current and available balances |
| Transactions | Date, amount, description, merchant or counterparty, status |
| Account-holder identity | Names, email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses the bank holds for the account holders |
| Investment holdings | Securities held (name, ticker and type), quantity, cost basis, price and value |
During sign-in, a bank may return every account reachable with one set of sign-in details, so you can pick. Depending on the product and the bank, Link may collect information from all of those accounts, not only the ones you select. Only the accounts you select are shared with the Receiving App. We keep information from other accounts only as long as needed for the purposes in this notice and as required by law.
Banks and providers each use their own data formats. On every route, Link stores the Account Data it receives so it can normalize, categorize and standardize it before sending it to the Receiving App. See section 6 for how long we keep it.
3.4 Connection records
For each connection we record the Receiving App, the institution, the accounts and data types you shared, the route (Link Direct or which third-party provider), whether sign-in details are retained, the connection status, errors, and the times the connection was created, refreshed, changed or ended. We use these records to run the connection, to show you your connections, and for security.
3.5 Your choices and acknowledgments
We record the choices you make in Link’s flow: the route you picked, the data you authorized, and your acknowledgment if sign-in details must be retained. We keep this record so we can show what you agreed to and when. For each choice, we record when you made it and the version of the text you were shown.
3.6 Device and log information
When you use Link’s connection flow or a Receiving App calls the Link API, we collect your IP address, browser or device type, app version, and request and error logs. We use them to run Link, keep it secure and fix problems. Section 9 says how long we keep them.
Device registration. Where your bank allows it, Link Direct registers with your bank as a device, the way your bank’s app does. Link creates a device identifier for your connection, stores it, and sends it to your bank when it signs in or renews access. It is used only for that connection.
3.7 Information from third-party providers
If you choose a third-party provider, you sign in through that provider’s flow, not Link’s. Link does not see your bank sign-in details on that route. Link receives what the provider returns: a token or connection identifier, the Account Data you authorized, and connection status. These are the same items the provider’s own API returns to anyone who calls it.
3.8 Information from Receiving Apps
A Receiving App sends Link an identifier for the app and an identifier the app assigns to you, so Link can match your connections to your account in that app.
3.9 The Link website and product updates
- Product updates. When you subscribe to Link product updates, we collect your email address and, if you choose, your role (person, developer or business). We also record that you subscribed through the Link site and when, and whether you open our emails and click their links.
- Request data. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, processes request data such as your IP address to deliver the site, protect it and limit abusive request rates. Link’s own code does not store your IP address. Cloudflare keeps this data under its default retention settings.
- The demo. The demo at link.maxint.com/demo uses demo data only. It sends nothing to us or anyone else. Everything stays in your browser. It does not connect to any real bank.
3.10 Developers and businesses
If you contact us about Link or use Link as a developer, we collect your name, email address, organization and what you tell us. For developer accounts, we also collect account details, API keys and API usage logs. This is covered by the Maxint Privacy Policy.
3.11 What Link does not do
Link is not a bank and does not hold your money. Connections are read-only: Link does not initiate payments or move money.
4. How we use information, and our legal bases
We use information collected through Link for the purposes below. Where the law of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland applies, we rely on the legal bases shown. Where we act for a Receiving App, the app determines the purpose and legal basis, and we process Account Data only on its instructions.
| Purpose | Information | Legal basis (when Maxint is controller) |
|---|---|---|
| Making the connection you request: signing in to your bank, obtaining tokens, retrieving and delivering the Account Data you authorize | Sign-in details, tokens, Account Data, connection records | Performance of our contract with you |
| Keeping a connection working at a bank that offers no way to renew access | Retained sign-in details | Performance of our contract with you, after you have been told and have explicitly acknowledged it |
| Showing you your connections and letting you disconnect or change them | Connection records | Performance of our contract with you |
| Recording what you agreed to | Choices and acknowledgments | Our legitimate interest in demonstrating what you authorized; compliance with legal obligations |
| Keeping Link secure, and detecting, preventing and investigating fraud, abuse and technical problems, including rate limiting | Request data, logs, connection records | Our legitimate interests in security; compliance with legal obligations |
| Maintaining Link’s bank integrations, for example when a bank updates its app | Connection status and error records. Account Data is not used for this | Our legitimate interest in keeping connections working |
| Sending Link product updates | Subscription data | Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time |
| Measuring how our product-update emails perform | Whether an email was opened and which links were clicked | Our legitimate interest in improving our emails |
| Deciding which banks to support next | Bank names requested in Link or sent to us | Our legitimate interest in prioritizing coverage |
| Complying with law, responding to lawful requests, and establishing or defending legal claims | Any, as needed | Compliance with legal obligations; our legitimate interests |
We use Account Data only to provide Link to you and the Receiving App you authorize, and for the security and legal purposes above. We do not use it for advertising, and, as for all Maxint services, your financial data is not used to train public AI models.
We do not make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you.
5. How we share information
With the Receiving App you authorize
We share the Account Data you authorize with the Receiving App you choose, and nothing more. The Receiving App’s own privacy policy governs what it does with that data. Developers that use Link agree to the Link Terms, which allow them to use Account Data only for the service you asked for. They may not sell it, use it for advertising, or use it to decide eligibility for credit, insurance, employment or housing, and they must delete it within 30 days after you end the connection.
With your bank (Link Direct)
To sign in and retrieve Account Data, Link sends your sign-in details and data requests to your bank. Your bank’s own privacy policy applies to what it receives.
With the third-party provider you choose
If you choose a third-party provider, you sign in with that provider and it retrieves your data under its own terms and privacy policy. Each provider is an independent company. Not every provider supports every bank, region or account type.
| Provider | Privacy policy |
|---|---|
| Plaid | plaid.com/legal (End User Privacy Policy) |
| Stripe Financial Connections | stripe.com/privacy |
| Teller | teller.io/legal/user/privacy |
| GoCardless Bank Account Data | gocardless.com/privacy/account-holders |
With our service providers
We use service providers that process information on our behalf, under contract, and only to provide services to us. They are listed on our subprocessors page. For Link, they include:
- Cloudflare, Inc.: hosting, content delivery, network security, DDoS protection and rate limiting.
- useSend: storing subscription contacts, sending product-update email and recording email opens and link clicks.
- Microsoft Azure: cloud infrastructure for Link services.
For other reasons
As described in the Maxint Privacy Policy, we may share information for legal reasons, in a business transaction such as a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets (subject to this notice or one at least as protective), or with your consent or at your direction.
What we do not do
- We do not sell personal information.
- We do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use it for targeted advertising.
- We do not share Account Data with anyone other than the Receiving App you authorize, the route you choose, our service providers, and as described above.
- We may create aggregated or de-identified data from Account Data, for example to improve how Link categorizes and standardizes data. It does not identify you, and we do not attempt to re-identify it.
6. How long we keep information
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Bank sign-in details (default) | Not kept after the token is issued |
| Bank sign-in details (exception) | Only for banks that require it, and only until you disconnect the account or close your Maxint account |
| Access and session tokens | While the connection is active. When you disconnect, tokens are invalidated and deleted immediately |
| Account Data | No longer than three years, unless a longer period is required by law or needed for security and compliance |
| Connection records and acknowledgments | For the life of the connection, then three years for security and legal records |
| Device and log information | Request and error logs for 90 days. Security and audit logs for 12 months |
| Subscription data | Until you unsubscribe, ask us to delete it, or we close the list |
Otherwise, section 6 of the Maxint Privacy Policy applies. We may keep information longer where the law requires it, to resolve disputes, prevent fraud or enforce our agreements. Deleted information may remain in encrypted backups for a limited time until they are overwritten.
7. Your controls
- See your connections. You can see each connection: the Receiving App, the accounts, the route, the data shared and whether sign-in details are retained. Sign in to Link at link.maxint.com; you don’t need a Maxint account.
- Disconnect. You can disconnect a connection at any time. When you do, Link stops using it. Whether your token is also cancelled at your bank or provider depends on them. You can also remove access in your bank’s own settings, where your bank offers it, or with the third-party provider.
- Change provider. You can choose a different route where one is available. Changing route usually means signing in again, because an authorization given to one provider does not move to another.
- Delete your data. You can ask us to delete information we hold as controller by emailing privacy@maxint.com. To delete Account Data a Receiving App already holds, contact that app.
- Unsubscribe. Email privacy@maxint.com and we will remove you from Link product updates.
8. Your rights
The rights described in section 9 of the Maxint Privacy Policy apply to information we hold about you as controller through Link. Make requests the same way: email privacy@maxint.com with the subject line “Privacy request”. If your request concerns Account Data we hold for a Receiving App, we will refer you to that app and help it respond.
European Economic Area, United Kingdom and Switzerland. You can access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of your information, and receive a portable copy. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. You can complain to your local data protection authority.
United States. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to know, access, correct, delete and port your information, and to opt out of sale, sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising, targeted advertising and certain profiling. We do not sell or share personal information, or use it for targeted advertising or such profiling. We use sensitive personal information, such as financial account information and any retained bank sign-in details, only to provide Link and for other purposes the law permits, so the right to limit its use does not apply. We treat Global Privacy Control signals as a valid opt-out. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
California. In addition to the categories in section 10 of the Maxint Privacy Policy, Link collects: identifiers (email address, and user identifiers from Receiving Apps); customer records and financial information (Account Data, including account and routing numbers and account-holder identity); and sensitive personal information (financial account information, and bank sign-in details where they must be retained). We disclose them for business purposes to service providers, and to the Receiving Apps and providers you direct. We do not sell or share them.
Federal financial privacy notice. The notice in section 12 of the Maxint Privacy Policy also applies to information collected through Link. It explains how we share this information and why there is nothing you need to opt out of.
9. International transfers
Maxint is based in the United States. Information collected through Link is processed in the United States, and our service providers may process it in other countries where they operate, as shown on our subprocessors page. Third-party providers may process your information in other countries under their own policies. Where we process information for a Receiving App, transfers are covered by our Data Processing Addendum, including the Standard Contractual Clauses where they apply. Where we send personal information from the EEA, UK or Switzerland to service providers in other countries as controller, we rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, with the UK Addendum and Swiss amendments where they apply.
10. Security
We protect information collected through Link with the safeguards described in section 7 of the Maxint Privacy Policy and on the Link Security page. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If a security incident affects your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law.
11. Children
Link is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. You must be at least 18 years old to use Link. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact privacy@maxint.com.
12. Cookies and browser storage on link.maxint.com
Link’s website uses no analytics, advertising trackers or third-party fonts. The site itself sets no cookies.
| Item | Set by | Why | Your choice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theme preference (localStorage) | Link docs | Remembers light or dark mode. Stays in your browser. | Clear your browser storage |
| Security cookies | Cloudflare | Strictly necessary to protect the site from bots and attacks. Cloudflare sets these under its default settings. | Required for the site to work securely |
| Demo state | The demo | Held in page memory only. Nothing is stored or sent to us. | Close or refresh the page |
Our product-update emails, including the confirmation email, record whether you open them and which links you click, using an invisible image and redirected links from our email provider, useSend. We use this only to understand how our emails perform. To avoid it, block images in your email app, or unsubscribe.
13. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice. We will post the new version on this page and change the effective date. If we make material changes, we will tell you in advance by email or in the product.
14. Contact us
Maxint Inc. Attn: Privacy 1875 Mission St, Ste 103 #180 San Francisco, CA 94103 United States privacy@maxint.com
Security issues: security@maxint.com. Other legal questions: legal@maxint.com.