Financial Institutions

Financial Institutions represent your customer's financial accounts (bank accounts) that can be used to withdraw or receive funds. You can add external accounts through:

1. Financial Institutions API
2. Plaid (coming soon)

Create through the Financial Institutions API

Link your customer's bank account by adding it to their Account.

POST https://api.brale.xyz/financial_institution/external

{
  "name": "Business Checking Account",
  "transfer_type": ["ACH", "Wire"],
  "metadata": {
    "nickname": "Payroll Account",
    "created_by": "InternalUser123"
  },
  "bank_details": {
    "owner": "Jane Doe",
    "account_number": "1234567890",
    "routing_number": "987654321",
    "name": "Example Bank",
    "address": {
      "street_line_1": "100 Example St",
      "street_line_2": "Suite 500",
      "city": "Springfield",
      "state": "CA",
      "zip": "90001",
      "country": "US"
    },
    "account_type": "checking"
  }
}

📘

You can also add Financial Institutions through the Brale Dashboard settings page https://app.brale.xyz/settings

Fetching Financial Institutions

Retrieve details of a linked financial institution by ID.

GET https://api.brale.xyz/financial_institutions/:id

{
  "name": "Business Checking Account",
  "transfer_type": ["ACH", "Wire"],
  "metadata": {
    "nickname": "Payroll Account",
    "created_by": "InternalUser123"
  },
  "bank_details": {
    "owner": "Jane Doe",
    "account_number": "1234567890",
    "routing_number": "987654321",
    "name": "Example Bank",
    "address": {
      "street_line_1": "100 Example St",
      "street_line_2": "Suite 500",
      "city": "Springfield",
      "state": "CA",
      "zip": "90001",
      "country": "US"
    },
    "account_type": "checking"
  }
}

Create Financial Institutions through Plaid

This guide walks you through how to enable your customers to securely link their bank accounts via Plaid. After linking, the new External Accounts can be used for ACH pulls and other money-movement flows.

Overview of the Flow

1. Request a Plaid Link Token from Brale.
2. Initialize Plaid Link in your front-end using the link_token.
3. Plaid returns a public_token once the user has successfully linked their account.
4. Exchange the public_token with Brle to finalize the linking process.
5. Fetch the newly created Financial Institutions for the end user, then proceed with transfers, withdrawals, etc.

Request a Plaid Link Token

POST https://api.brale.xyz/financial_institution/plaid_link_token

Response

{
  "link_token": "link_token_XYZ",
  "expires_at": "2025-03-23T03:22:34.086Z",
  "exchange_callback_url":"https://api.brale.xyz/exchange_public_token/{unique-id}"
}

• link_token: The token you will use to launch Plaid Link in your front-end or mobile app.
• expires_at: Time at which the link_token will no longer be valid.
• exchange_callback_url: The endpoint to which you should send the public_token to finalize the exchange.

Render the Plaid Link SDK

In your front-end, initialize Plaid Link using the link_token you received.

For production apps, it’s recommended you send the public_token to your own backend (over HTTPS), and then have your backend call our exchange endpoint. That way, you avoid exposing your own platform API keys in the browser.

Exchange the Public Token

Once the user completes linking, you’ll receive a public_token. You must exchange it for permanent access tokens and link information.

POST https://api.brale.xyz/financial_institution/exchange_public_token

{
  "public_token": "public_token_XYZ"
}

After this call completes, our system retrieves the linked bank accounts and creates External Accounts for each account the user selected.

Check for Newly Created Financial Institutions

Shortly after exchanging the public token, the user’s bank accounts are idempotently created as Financial Institutions which you can query.

GET https://api.brale.xyz/financial_institutions/:id

{
  "name": "Business Checking Account",
  "transfer_type": ["ACH", "Wire"],
  "metadata": {
    "nickname": "Payroll Account",
    "created_by": "InternalUser123"
  },
  "bank_details": {
    "owner": "Jane Doe",
    "account_number": "1234567890",
    "routing_number": "987654321",
    "name": "Example Bank",
    "address": {
      "street_line_1": "100 Example St",
      "street_line_2": "Suite 500",
      "city": "Springfield",
      "state": "CA",
      "zip": "90001",
      "country": "US"
    },
    "account_type": "checking"
  }
}

At this point, you can initiate ACH pulls or other transactions using these new Financial Institutions.