Fintech decacorn Plaid is expanding beyond its core product of account linking — its first major expansion since its 2013 inception.

In conjunction with its “Plaid Forum” event, the startup today unveiled a number of “product enhancements and new initiatives,” which include moving into identity and income verification, fraud prevention and providing new tools for account funding and disbursements.

The move comes two weeks after payments giant Stripe announced it was encroaching on Plaid’s territory with a new product of its own. The news positions Plaid even further into direct competition with Stripe as the two fintech giants are increasingly offering more and more of the same services.

In a blog post entitled “Ushering in fintech’s next phase,” Plaid CEO and co-founder Zach Perret noted that the majority of Plaid’s network traffic has run through direct bank APIs that are made possible through bank partnerships and Plaid Exchange, a data access offering that is used by over 1,000 banks and fintechs to deliver API-based data access to their customers. 

But now, the company has expanded its data connectivity offering to include Core Exchange, which Perret said offers banks, fintechs, or “data partners” another way to “securely” share data when using Plaid.

Alain Meier, Plaid’s head of identity, told TechCrunch that account connectivity has always been the company’s core focus. Over the years, he points out, Plaid has helped power the connectivity to millions of accounts – especially as more consumers use digital financial services.

Over time, as Perret shares, the company has added more fintech companies to its network including Chime, Dave, Robinhood and SoFi. It’s also added new types of data connections, such as payroll data so people