There are thousands of financial institutions in the U.S. Establishing connections with the computer systems across many institutions can be challenging. The reliability of these systems vary by institution, and each bank has its own rules and practices when it comes to security protocols, account authentication, and so on.
In order to ensure that we’re able to access as many of these systems as possible, Albert (and most other financial services companies) partners with an account aggregator—Plaid—who has established direct connections with the computer systems at many financial institutions.
However, not every financial institution supports online connections from third parties. Also, banks experience systems crashes, security protocols change, and other unforeseen circumstances arise. As a result, you may periodically be unable to connect to your financial institution account when accessing it from Albert.
If this happens, see our troubleshooting article on common account linking errors. If you’re still having trouble connecting to your account, you may need to attempt connecting again later—many account connection issues tend to get resolved by the account aggregators and the banks within several hours to a day.