These Guides cover concepts and product decisions. For implementation details and code, see the API Reference.
How Method Works
Unlike aggregators that require users to share their bank login credentials, Method uses a fundamentally different approach. When a user verifies their identity, Method performs a soft credit pull (no impact to the user’s credit score) to automatically discover all of their liabilities, without any manual account entry or credential sharing. Once accounts are discovered, Method can retrieve real-time data directly from financial institutions for supported accounts, giving you current balances, due dates, interest rates, and payment amounts. For accounts where direct connections aren’t available, Method falls back to credit report data as a reliable baseline. This two-source model, credit report discovery paired with direct institutional access, means your product gets both breadth (visibility into virtually every liability) and depth (real-time data where it matters most).What Method Does
Discover and connect consumer liabilities at scale
Method connects to 15,000+ financial institutions, from major banks to regional lenders. When a user links their identity, you gain visibility into their full liability picture — credit cards, auto loans, student loans, mortgages, personal loans, and more.
Keep liability data fresh and normalized
Liability data arrives from institutions in inconsistent formats and update cycles. Method standardizes balances, due dates, interest rates, payment amounts, and limits into a clean, consistent data model accessible through a single API.
Move money to pay down debts
Method enables payments directly to connected liability accounts. Initiate paydowns from a verified funding source while Method handles submission, processing, delivery to the creditor, and confirmation.
Monitor changes over time for your users
Financial accounts constantly change — balances update, payments post, and accounts open or close. Method’s subscription system keeps your application synced with these updates through near-real-time notifications.
Who Method Is Built For
Commerce
Commerce and card-linked platforms that need to connect to consumers’ card accounts for transaction data, card-on-file verification, or payment instrument provisioning to power checkout, rewards, and card-linked offer experiences.Card Linking & Checkout
Enrich connected cards with brand art, tokenize credentials for checkout, and build card-on-file experiences.
Expense Tracking & Transactions
Stream real-time credit card transactions for spend management and card-linked offers.
Lending
Lenders and underwriters that need verified, up-to-date liability data to make credit decisions, calculate debt-to-income ratios, verify existing obligations, and enable debt consolidation through structured plans, lump-sum payments, or automated recurring transfers.Application & Qualification
Pre-fill loan applications with verified liability data and assess risk with credit health attributes.
Debt Consolidation
Discover eligible accounts, verify current balances, and disburse funds directly to creditors.
Monitoring & Retargeting
Subscribe to account updates and credit score changes to monitor borrower health and identify retargeting opportunities.
Personal Finance & Financial Wellness
Personal finance and financial wellness applications that want to give users a comprehensive view of their liabilities alongside their assets, track progress over time, and provide actionable insights about credit health.Onboarding & Discovery
Identity verification options, liability discovery via Connect, and vehicle enrichment for auto loans.
Dashboard & Insights
Build real-time debt dashboards with account updates, card brand art, credit scores, and financial health attributes.
Transactions & Payments
Stream credit card transactions for spend management and initiate bill payments to your users’ creditors.
Quickstart
Most integrations follow this four-step pattern, though the exact flow may vary depending on your product and use case.
Core Concepts
Understand Method’s object model and how everything connects.
Opal
Drop-in embedded UI that handles identity verification, account discovery, and more — get to value in days, not weeks.
API Reference
Dive into the full API documentation.