investment platform · United States
Northwestern Mutual is in the institution catalog as inst_northwestern_mutual. This page shows how it routes, what each connector in that chain can read, and the exact calls that start a connection.
Brokerages and retirement providers. Positions, securities, and trade history alongside cash balances. Link hands the user off to the institution's own consent page, so no password is ever seen by your servers or ours. Expect a multi-factor challenge during the flow — Link loops on it until the connector is satisfied.
what you can read
Support is a property of the connector that serves the connection, not of the institution alone — so the honest answer is a matrix, not a badge.
| Connector | Balances | Transactions | Recurring | Assets | Identity | Income | Liabilities | Investments | Crypto |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MXagreementSales-led agreement with MX. | |||||||||
| PlaidagreementPlaid's sandbox is instant; Production access needs a company profile and a use-case review. | |||||||||
| Sandboxself-serveAlways on. Deterministic simulated data — it never reaches a real institution. |
At connect time the registry walks this chain and uses the first connector whose credentials are present in the deployment. Connecting Northwestern Mutual to real data therefore requires the relevant provider credentials to be configured — without them the connection falls through to the sandbox, which serves realistic simulated data and never contacts Northwestern Mutual. Test keys resolve to the sandbox regardless.
Connecting Northwestern Mutual for real
FeelConnect does not hold bank connections of its own. Every institution in the catalog carries an ordered chain of connectors, and live traffic goes to the first one whose credentials are present in the deployment you are calling.
Some connectors an operator can switch on alone in minutes — GoCardless Bank Account Data (UK and EU banks, free self-signup under their PSD2 licence), Coinbase, Kraken, PayPal, public-address crypto wallets, and CSV / OFX / QFX import. Others need a signed business relationship before they will serve production data, including Plaid, MX, Finicity, Akoya, and Stripe Financial Connections. Where an institution has no enabled connector, a live call returns provider_error rather than pretending.
The sandbox is the exception and it is always on: test keys resolve to the simulated network regardless of credentials, so the full integration is buildable on day one. See going live for the provider-by-provider breakdown.
how to connect it
Passing institution_id opens Link directly on Northwestern Mutual instead of the picker — useful when your own UI already asked which bank.
import { FeelConnect } from "@feelconnect/node";const fc = new FeelConnect({apiKey: process.env.FEELCONNECT_SECRET_KEY!,baseUrl: "https://connect.feels.money/v1",});// Pin the flow to Northwestern Mutual: Link opens straight on its auth step// instead of the institution picker.const { link_token } = await fc.link.createToken({client_name: "Your app",user: { client_user_id: "user-123" },products: ["balances", "transactions", "recurring"],institution_id: "inst_northwestern_mutual",});
The browser receives only the link_token, which expires in thirty minutes. Link runs the institution’s auth step, any MFA challenge, account selection, and the consent screen, then hands back a public_token. Exchange it once on your server with fc.link.exchangeToken and store the resulting access_token encrypted. Full walkthrough in the quickstart.
in the api
The response below is generated from this institution's row, so it is the shape and the values a real call gets back.
# Look the institution up by id.curl https://connect.feels.money/v1/institutions/get_by_id \-H "Authorization: Bearer $FEELCONNECT_SECRET_KEY" \-H "Content-Type: application/json" \-d '{ "institution_id": "inst_northwestern_mutual" }'
logo_url is a path on this origin rather than a third-party CDN, so rendering the mark never tells anyone else which institution your user is looking at. primary_color and monogram are the fallback tile for clients that would rather not load an image at all. Field by field in the institutions reference.
In the sandbox this institution connects today. Link shows a credential form; user_good / pass_good succeeds, user_mfa / pass_good adds a challenge whose code is 1234, and user_locked produces an item error. Either way the item comes back with 24 months of deterministic history — enough to build and demo the whole integration before any provider agreement exists. Sandbox reference.
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