Case Study: Carvana achieves instant payment verification and faster approvals with Plaid

Accelerating the future of auto payments

Carvana, an online used-vehicle retailer, needed to modernize a cumbersome ACH-based payment flow that forced customers to enter routing and account numbers, triggered lengthy three-way bank calls, and became unsustainable as the business scaled (~$900M revenue). After evaluating options, Carvana selected Plaid — using Plaid Auth, Identity, Balance, and Transactions — for its ease of integration, usability, and projected cost savings.

Plaid’s suite enabled instant account authentication, real-time balance checks, and access to 60-day transaction histories, removing the need for checkbooks or manual routing-number entry and cutting verification friction. As a result, Carvana reduced approval time (from three days to two), prevented overdrafts/NSFs through balance verification, avoided long bank calls, realized significant projected savings within a year, and implemented the solution in roughly one month (with two months to adopt the full suite) using Plaid.

Carvana

Wylie Kyi

Senior Product Manager