Card Issuing

Card Accounts

API Documentation

A card account serves as the bridge between cardholders and your card program, representing a financial relationship that may include one or more cardholders — which could be an individual customer, a household, a business department, or any other organizational unit.

Card transactions are applied to the account as cards associated with the account are used.

A single card account can have multiple cardholders and multiple physical or virtual cards associated with it, all managed within a unified structure. This flexibility supports arrangements such as primary and additional cardholders, business cards with multiple employees, or family accounts with separate cards for different members.

Rules and limits can be applied at the account level in addition to program-wide controls.

Card Account Types

Card accounts link to different underlying resources depending on the program type:

Debit Card Programs

Links to: Bank account

Each card account is linked to a USD bank account that holds the cardholder's funds. Transactions are debited directly from this bank account.

Charge Card Programs

Card accounts for charge card programs link to a loan. How the loan is collateralized depends on the card program's credit_policy.

Secured Charge Card Programs

  • Cardholder-Secured Charge Card Programs (cardholder_secured)

    Links to: Loan (secured by a collateral bank account) Each card account links to a secured loan whose collateral bank account holds the cardholder's collateral deposit. The card account's spend limit is the minimum of the collateral deposit balance and the maximum allowed line of credit.

  • Platform-Secured Charge Card Programs (platform_secured)

    Links to: Loan Each card account links to a loan. The collateral deposit account is managed at the card program level rather than the individual account level.

Unsecured Charge Card Programs (unsecured)

Links to: Loan Each card account links to a loan that extends credit without requiring collateral.

Credit Card Programs

Links to: Loan

Each card account links to a loan that allows revolving credit, enabling cardholders to carry balances from month to month. Credit card programs support the same credit_policy options as charge card programs.

Statuses and Events

When managing a card account through our API, it progresses through distinct state transitions throughout its lifecycle.

Statuses

Status
Description
open
The account is fully operational and can process transactions. In this state, cards associated with the account can be used if it is in good standing. This is the default state when an account is first created through the API.
suspended
The account is temporarily paused and cannot process new transactions. This state is useful when you need to temporarily restrict account activity due to suspicious behavior, at a cardholder's request, or while investigating potential fraud. Suspending an account pauses its active cards. The account can be reinstated to return it to open, but cards paused by the suspension stay paused until you activate them individually.
closed
The account is permanently deactivated and cannot process any new transactions. This terminal state cannot be reversed, and any attempt to use the associated card will be declined. Only open accounts can be closed, so a suspended account must be reinstated before it is closed. Closing an account fails while it has cards that are not deactivated, unless you set deactivate_cards_and_card_tokens to true to deactivate them as part of the close.

Events

Transition
Status
Event
Description
Opened
open
issuing.card_account.created
The card account has been created

Suspending, reinstating, and closing a card account do not emit card account events.

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Cards