Account Linking via Mastercard Data Connect

Account Linking via Mastercard Data Connect gives your account holders a secure way to connect their external bank accounts, letting them instantly share critical banking data like account and routing numbers, balances, and ownership. This solution means users don't need to manually link their accounts, which can be a slow and error-prone process.

This product uses three Mastercard services:

• Account Details — Instantly retrieves the account and routing numbers using your account holder's secure bank login.
• Account Owner Verification (AO) — Provides the account holder's identity information from the external bank.
• Mastercard Balance Check — Checks for available funds in real time to prevent transfer failures due to non-sufficient funds (NSF).

Galileo complements Mastercard's AO service by performing an internal verification to confirm the user's identity. This multi-factor approach provides a more robust and secure account verification process, rather than a simple data pass-through.

Mastercard Data Connect is designed for account holders to link accounts they personally own (the "me-to-me" use case).

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This method is not intended for linking or facilitating transfers to or from accounts owned by different individuals.

Key benefits for you

• Increase account activation — Improve sign-up and funding completion rates by removing the friction of manual account entry.
• Reduce fraud risk — Authenticating with external bank credentials makes it significantly harder for fraudsters to link unauthorized accounts.
• Lower ACH returns — Reduce returns from incorrect account information and fraud by using robust account ownership verification.
• Maintain compliance — Adhere to Nacha's WEB debit account validation rule.
• Mitigate NSF risk — Use the optional Balance Check via Mastercard Data Connect feature to reduce returns due to NSF.

Key benefits for your account holders

• Streamlined experience — Provide an instant and secure account linking process with no manual data entry or slow micro-deposits.
• Enhanced control — Give your account holders a secure, transparent way to provide explicit consent and manage access to their financial data.

How it works

This is a high-level overview of the workflow that integrates the Mastercard Data Connect SDK in your application with Galileo's APIs. For more details, refer to Setting Up Account Linking via Mastercard Data Connect.

1. Initiate SDK — The workflow begins in your application when your account holder chooses to link an external account via the Mastercard Data Connect SDK.
2. Account holder authentication — Your account holder selects their external bank and securely authenticates using their online banking credentials. Mastercard's interface handles this process without exposing credentials to your platform.
3. Request account link — After successful authentication, you call a Galileo endpoint to establish the link.
4. Verify account ownership — In the background, Galileo performs enhanced verification using the account owner details provided by Mastercard's AO service. Our system compares the name and other key data points, including email, phone, and other details against the account holder information you have on file in the Galileo system. A sophisticated matching process determines if the ownership is sufficiently verified.
5. Receive status update — Galileo sends you an account event to confirm the verification status (e.g., ACTIVE or FAILED).
6. Initiate transfer — Once the account is active, your account holder can initiate funds transfer.

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To check for available funds before a transfer, see the Balance Check via Mastercard Data Connect guide.

Account holder experience

When your account holders want to link their external accounts from your app, their experience can be as simple as this:

1. Navigate to your app or web interface.

2. Select the option to connect a bank account.

3. Search for and select the external bank.
4. Enter their external banking credentials into the secure Mastercard interface.

5. Select the specific account (e.g., "Checking") to link and grant permission.
6. Receive a confirmation in your app that the account is successfully linked.

Use case: New account funding

Reed decides to open a new debit account with PartnerBank and needs to fund it from his existing Finbank account. Reed navigates to the "Add Funds" section of the PartnerBank app and selects the option to link his bank. He chooses Finbank from the list and securely logs in with his bank credentials. After selecting his checking account, the link is established and verified in seconds.

Implementation

To enable Account Linking via Mastercard Data Connect, you are responsible for integrating with Mastercard through its Data Connect SDK. Galileo performs the required back-end setup to configure your program.

For details on implementing this product, see the Setting Up Account Linking via Mastercard Data Connect guide.