Start here
Link a bank
Connect an institution through Plaid and keep balances fresh.
Linking a bank pulls balances and transactions automatically. Moola uses Plaid for this. You sign in to your bank inside Plaid's window; Moola receives a token that can only read, stores it encrypted, and revokes it at Plaid the moment you disconnect.
Before you start
- Turn on a second factor. Linking a bank requires either an authenticator app or a passkey on your account. Set one up in Settings → Sign-in security; see Sign-in security.
- Check your plan. The free plan links one institution. Moola Plus links up to ten.
Connect
- Open Settings → Bank connections → Connect a bank.
- Pick your institution and sign in inside Plaid.
- Choose the accounts to share. They appear in Moola within seconds with their current balances.
Transactions arrive over the next minute or two. Moola loads up to 13 months of history where the bank provides it.
Keeping balances fresh
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Every five minutes while the app is open | Moola refreshes linked balances and reprices investment holdings. |
| Every day | A background job refreshes anything not synced in the last 12 hours. |
| When the bank reports changes | Plaid notifies Moola, which syncs new transactions right away. |
| When you press Refresh | Moola asks Plaid to pull from the bank again. This is limited to once an hour per institution, and on the free plan it reads Plaid's most recent copy instead. |
Each connection shows Bank data as of a time. That is when Plaid last fetched from the bank itself, which can lag a few hours depending on the institution.
When a connection pauses
Banks sometimes require you to sign in again, often after a password change or a security update on their side. The connection turns amber in Settings → Bank connections with a Reconnect button. Reconnecting takes you back through Plaid without losing history. Until you do, the balances are kept but marked stale, and the Health Data quality check will mention it.
Disconnecting
Disconnect removes the institution's accounts and their history from Moola and revokes the token at Plaid. If you only want to stop seeing one account, mark it private or rename it instead; Plaid connections are per institution.