Introduction

Synapse has the capability to issue cards on top of our accounts. They follow the functionality of those issued by traditional banks (e.g. ATM access, consumer protection), and give access to the interchange rails (e.g. providing the ability to push funds to the card/account).

Cards can be issued on top of our deposit (<<account_interestCheckingUS>>, <<account_depositUS>>,), FBO Deposit (SUBACCOUNT-US), and (<<account_loanUS>>) nodes. They can be virtual or physical and for businesses or individuals. We can issue debit BINs (cards that are used in the card networks' "debit card" payment network) and credit BINs (only available when the card is used for a LOAN-US node; makes use of the card networks' "credit card" payment network).

Node Type: Issued cards are a subnet of a node--they sit on top of an account or loan. Their account class (account_class) is CARD.

Native Issued Cards

We directly process transactions from our native issued cards. This provides benefits and functionalities that might not be provided by other card issuers including:

• Sub-BIN per Platform: Each of our platforms receives a BIN range for their cards. Sub-BIN functionality lets merchants recognize cards by their type to allow for specific use cases (e.g. HSA-eligible spending, commuter benefits, etc.).

• Per Transaction Decisioning: Platforms have the capability to allow or refuse a transaction in real-time based on MCCs (Merchant Category Codes) or other logic.

• Instant Auth: With Instant Auth an account (normally with little to no balance) receives a pull transaction request from the card network, who notifies the platform, and who then (after some logical decisioning) funds the account for the requested amount of funds--at which point the pull transaction is executed.

Recommended Steps to Issue a Card

Create the Card

1. Make sure your controls (what you are allowed to do in our system) allow for card issuance.

2. Have a successfully created node that allows for the creation of card subnets. See Accounts or Lending Main Page for more information on how to do so.

3. Make sure the user for whom the card is going to be issued for has SEND-AND-RECEIVE permissions and is not a match in one of our sanctions lists click here for our guide on how to check for this.

4. Submit our Create Card call to create a card. Once created the card will have by default have a status of INACTIVE. The type of card BIN will be automatically assigned based on the nature of the underlying node.

5. User our Allow Foreign Transactions to specify if foreign transactions are allowed (allow_foreign_transactions) or not, depending on what is best for your use case.

Additional Steps for Shipping Physical Cards

6. Use the Ship Card call to ship a physical card. We will send it to the address listed on the user's Base Doc by default (learn more about Base Docs here).

   • If a user wishes to send a card to a different address than the Base Doc address, the card can instead be sent to a mailing address (by adding a social document with "document_type": "MAILING_ADDRESS" using the Add Mailing Address call).
   • Please note that deliverability criteria will be more stringent for a mailing address than for a Base Doc address. A card may ship to an address specified in a Base Doc but not ship to the same address specified as a mailing address (e.g. if the [Verify Address] call returns a deliverability analysis of deliverable_incorrect_unit or deliverable_missing_unit, the address would be considered deliverable if it is a Base Doc address but undeliverable if it is a mailing address). When an undeliverable mailing address is encountered (either when supplied as a new social doc or when retrieved for a card shipment attempt), an invalid_mailing_address error should be returned. Additionally, a previously rejected mailing address will have status of SUBMITTED|INVALID.
   • Please also note that because a mailing address overwrites the Base Doc Address for card shipments, an undeliverable mailing address will prevent a card shipment completely. Previously, a card shipment with an undeliverable mailing address would use the Base Doc address as a fallback address, but this behavior has been removed.

7. (Optional) Provide a secondary label (secondary_label) with the Ship Card call to print additional information on the card beneath the cardholder name.

Delivery Values

• You can specify a delivery value (delivery) for a card shipment, which incrementally increases in price (i.e. additional delivery fees will apply).

• Please note that expedite has been [DEPRECATED] and is replaced with delivery.
• Please also note that if tracking is enabled for a card shipment, you can obtain the tracking ID/number from the tracking field returned by View Card Shipment call.

8. Wait for confirmation from the user before activating the card.
   • For example, provide an Activate Card button in your app/on your website.

Activate the Card

9. Once provided confirmation by the user, you can now Activate the Card using the Update Card Status call.

Required KYC

In our system, cards sit on top of nodes. We capture user KYC at the node level, meaning that the KYC has been previously captured and is not directly captured at the card level. Please keep in mind that KYC requirements may vary depending on the specific use case.

Physical Card Art

Our physical cards are white-labeled and can be customized by the platform (although they must be approved by the card network). To learn more about the physical art process please contact your Account Manager or [email protected].

ATM Access

For Debit BINs only:

• Green Dot Network Reload locations for cash deposits.
• Allpoint Network card-less ATM withdrawal access.
• Developing fee-less withdrawals from ATMs in the MoneyPass Network.

You can use our Find ATM Locations call to find ATMs (Allpoint & MoneyPass) near your location. When a user makes use of an out-of-network ATM, any applicable fees will be charged to the platform. This is done to give the platform the option to either cover the fee or pass it along to the user.

Sub-Resources

Below you can find links to API calls to perform various debit card actions, as well as to other supplementary resources.

APIs for Our Native Card Issuance Product

• Create Card
• View Card
• Set Pin
• Ship Card
• Update Card Status
• Allow Foreign Transactions
• Dispute Transaction
• Delete Card
• Find ATM Locations

Return Codes & Statuses

• Subnet Statuses
• Transaction Status Codes
• Transaction Queue Codes
• Transaction Cancellation Codes
• Error Codes & Transaction Status Notes

Legal

Please refer to our General Legal page for more information.
If you are looking for our external card processing product please refer here