Institutions

An institution record holds metadata about a financial institution as reported by Plaid. It captures the institution’s supported Plaid products, branding (logo, color), routing numbers, and OAuth requirements.

Institution records are refreshed weekly by the prod-txn-institution Lambda (runs every Sunday at 00:00 UTC). They are used by the API to serve institution information (logo, name, connection health) without requiring a real-time Plaid call on every request.

The GET /{user_id}/transactions/institutions/{institution_id} endpoint fetches live institution connectivity status directly from Plaid (not from this table) and is used by the app to display real-time connection health.

Storage

Table: prod-txn-plaid-institutions

Region: us-east-2

Keys

Key Value

Key	Value
`institution_id`	Plaid’s institution identifier (primary key). No sort key — one record per institution.

institution_id

Plaid’s institution identifier (primary key). No sort key — one record per institution.

Attributes

Attribute Description

Attribute	Description
`institution_id`	Plaid’s unique identifier for the institution (e.g., `ins_3`)
`name`	Human-readable institution name (e.g., `"Chase"`)
`products`	Array of Plaid products the institution supports (e.g., `["auth", "transactions", "liabilities", "identity"]`)
`country_codes`	Array of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes where the institution operates (e.g., `["US"]`)
`url`	The institution’s public website URL
`primary_color`	Hex color code representing the institution’s primary brand color (e.g., `"#117ACA"`)
`routing_numbers`	Array of ACH routing numbers associated with the institution. Some institutions have multiple.
`dtc_numbers`	Array of DTC (Depository Trust Company) numbers for the institution, used in securities clearing
`oauth`	`true` if the institution requires OAuth for users to share data with Plaid. OAuth institutions open a browser window for authentication rather than prompting for credentials in-app.
`logo`	Base64-encoded PNG logo image for the institution. Used to display bank logos in the app.

institution_id

Plaid’s unique identifier for the institution (e.g., ins_3)

name

Human-readable institution name (e.g., "Chase")

products

Array of Plaid products the institution supports (e.g., ["auth", "transactions", "liabilities", "identity"])

country_codes

Array of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes where the institution operates (e.g., ["US"])

url

The institution’s public website URL

primary_color

Hex color code representing the institution’s primary brand color (e.g., "#117ACA")

routing_numbers

Array of ACH routing numbers associated with the institution. Some institutions have multiple.

dtc_numbers

Array of DTC (Depository Trust Company) numbers for the institution, used in securities clearing

oauth

true if the institution requires OAuth for users to share data with Plaid. OAuth institutions open a browser window for authentication rather than prompting for credentials in-app.

logo

Base64-encoded PNG logo image for the institution. Used to display bank logos in the app.

Query Patterns

Query Index Conditions

Query	Index	Conditions
Get institution by ID	Primary	`institution_id = <institution_id>`

Get institution by ID

Primary

institution_id = <institution_id>

Weekly Sync Job

The prod-txn-institution Lambda runs on a CloudWatch schedule every Sunday at 00:00 UTC. It fetches all institution metadata from Plaid and performs a full PutItem for each institution in the prod-txn-plaid-institutions table, overwriting any existing record.

This keeps institution data — particularly oauth status, supported products, and logo — current without requiring real-time lookups during normal API requests.

Items — Items reference institution_id and institution_name
Infrastructure — CloudWatch schedule configuration for the institution Lambda
Architecture — prod-txn-plaid-institutions table overview