Application Proxy System for Financial Data Access

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing methods for accessing financial data from multiple institutions are inefficient, costly, and prone to failure due to dependence on web-crawling techniques that are slow, resource-intensive, and vulnerable to changes in website layout or visual representation.

Innovation Solution

A system and method that utilize an application proxy system to programmatically access financial data by simulating application access to institutions, thereby bypassing the need for public APIs and normalizing data access across multiple institutions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If web-crawling solutions are used to access financial data, then data can be retrieved from multiple institutions, but the process becomes slow and resource-intensive

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata access capabilityVSAvoiddata retrieval speed

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces an intermediary system (the platform) that sits between the user's application and multiple financial institutions. This intermediary provides standardized API access points that efficiently retrieve data without requiring direct web-crawling of each institution's website, thereby improving retrieval speed while maintaining multi-institution access capability

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the mechanical web-crawling approach (simulating browser requests, parsing HTML) with a more efficient API-based communication system. This substitution eliminates the need to render full web pages and execute JavaScript, directly addressing the speed and resource consumption issues

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

2Adaptability or versatility

If web-crawling solutions are used to access financial data, then data can be retrieved from multiple institutions, but the cost increases due to numerous web resources consumed

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata access capabilityVSAvoidresource consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

The intermediary platform consolidates data access requests through standardized APIs, reducing the total number of web resources consumed. Instead of each application independently crawling multiple institution websites, all requests go through the platform's optimized API layer, lowering overall resource consumption and cost

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

3Adaptability or versatility

If web-crawling solutions are used to access financial data, then data can be retrieved, but the system becomes highly dependent on visual representation and layout changes can break the crawling

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata access capabilityVSAvoiddata access reliability

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces visual-dependent web-crawling with API-based data access. APIs provide structured, programmatic interfaces that return data in consistent formats (JSON, XML) regardless of how the data is displayed on the institution's website. This eliminates the fragility associated with relying on visual layouts and CSS

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Solution Approach 2:

Instead of having the crawling system adapt to the institution's website layout (the conventional approach), the patent inverts the relationship by having the institution expose standardized data interfaces. The data structure remains stable while the presentation layer can change independently

Inventive Principle:

Principle #13The other way round (Inversion)

Data Source

PatentUS20250029177A1System and method for programmatically accessing financial data

Publication Date: 2025.01.23 PLAID INC

AI summary

Systems and methods for programmatic access of external financial service systems. An application proxy instance is created that simulates an application of an external financial service system. A normalized account request is received for financial data of the external financial service system for a specified account. The normalized account request is provided by an external financial application system by using a financial data API of the financial platform system. Responsive to the normalized account request, communication is negotiated with the external financial service system by using the application proxy instance to access the requested financial data from the external financial service system by using a proprietary Application Programming Interface (API) of the external financial service system. The financial data is provided to the external financial application system as a response to the normalized account request.