Activating a Card

This guide explains how to activate physical cards using the Activate Card endpoint.

Follow this procedure to activate physical cards.
Do not follow this procedure to activate virtual cards; instead, use the Modify Account or Card Status endpoint.

As an anti-fraud measure, physical cards must be activated by the cardholder prior to use. (If you are using Galileo's Digital First Program, cards are activated automatically upon creation.) You determine the card-activation method for cardholders in cooperation with your bank and Galileo at the time you set up your program. This method may be through Galileo's IVRIVR - Interactive voice response. A telephone-answering system that can recognize caller speech and touch-tone input. Galileo offers an IVR for customers to activate their cards and set their PINs., on your web site or mobile app, or by another method. If you choose the IVR option you do not need to follow this procedure.

Result of calling Activate Card

When Activate Card has run successfully, the card is changed from status: Y (ready to be activated) to status: N (active).

Parameters

This table explains the parameters that are specific to the Activate Card endpoint. See the Activate Card endpoint reference for details.

Parameter	Usage
`accountNo`	Pass the PRNPRN - Payment reference number (pmt_ref_no). The 12-digit Galileo-generated account identifier, which exists independently of the PAN or other identifiers., PANPAN - Primary account number. The 16-digit number that is printed on a card, beginning with the BIN. This number is not the same as the account identifier, which is the PRN, or the card identifier, which is the CAD., or CADCAD - Card identifier (card_id). A Galileo-generated identifier for a card. This number is used internally and is not presented to customers, merchants, or card networks. You can use the CAD instead of the PAN if you are not PCI compliant. Retrieve the CAD from the RDFs or the responses for Get Account Cards or Get Card.. If you pass the PRN you may also want to request `cardNumberLastFour` from the cardholder to select the correct card. To pass in the PAN you must be PCI compliant.
`cardExpiryDate`	Cardholder-provided. Use this value to test against the card to be activated.
`cardSecurityCode`	Cardholder-provided. Use this value to test against the card to be activated.
`cardNumberLastFour`	Cardholder-provided. If the cardholder has more than one card associated with their account, and if you passed PRN as `accountNo`, use this parameter to ensure that the correct card is selected.
`deactivateTemporaryCards`	If you issued one or more temporary cards while the cardholder waited for the physical card to arrive in the mail, pass `1` to deactivate those cards. This applies to cards that are associated with the account of the card that is being activated, not cards that are associated with other accounts that the account holder has.

Card-activation workflow

This flowchart shows the logical progression of the Activate Card endpoint. The actual sequence of events in the Galileo system may vary.

Retrieve cardholder input, populate the Activate Card endpoint, and send.
Galileo performs a number of preliminary checks. Failures return the status codes shown in the diagram. Consult the Status codes table for next steps.
Galileo checks for a card with the accountNo that is in status: Y. Failure to find such an account returns status: 467-02.
Galileo verifies that the card's account is not in an improper status:
- If it is in a status that is specified in the CRDBL parameter, status: 467-06 is returned.
- If it is in status: F (fraud), status: 467-05 is returned.
- If it is in status: R (charged off), status: 467-04 is returned.
If the data the customer supplied matches the data on record, Galileo activates the card and sends the webhook BACT: card_activated, if you are configured to receive it. If there is no match, Galileo returns status: 467-01.
If deactivateTemporaryCards: 1, Galileo attempts to deactivate any temporary cards that were issued. If Galileo cannot deactivate the cards, status: 467-03 is returned. If the cards are successfully deactivated or deactivateTemporaryCards is not set, status: 0 is returned.

Sample endpoint request and response

Consult the Activate Card endpoint to see how to build the API request and to see the response schema.

Status codes

Consult this table to see an explanation of what each status code means and which next steps to take, if any.

Status code	Description	Next steps
`0`	Success	None
`2`	Invalid parameter. `accountNo` is not in the correct PAN/PRN format.	Retry with correct format in `accountNo`.
`4`	System error. Unexpected error in the endpoint.	Contact Galileo for troubleshooting.
`12`	Invalid customer account. The `accountNo` is not found on the Galileo system.	Retry with correct account number.
`24`	Duplicate transaction.	None. Duplicate API calls have no effect on the Galileo system.
`467-01`	No cards in `status: Y` match the cardholder-provided input.	Cardholder must supply correct card data.
`467-02`	No cards in `status: Y` match the PRN or customer ID.	Retry with valid PRN or customer ID. Your product settings determine which value the system searches on.
`467-03`	Card successfully activated but temporary cards could not be deactivated.	Verify that your product parameters are correct, or send Modify Account or Card Status calls with `type: 2` for the temporary cards.
`467-04`	Account is in `status: R` (charged-off) and cannot be modified.	Inform the cardholder that the card cannot be activated.
`465-05`	Account is in `status: F` (fraud) and cannot be modified.	Inform the cardholder that the card cannot be activated.
`467-06`	Account is in a status that is specified in the CRDBL parameter.	Inform the cardholder that the card cannot be activated.
`-1`	System failure. Possibly a network or database issue.	Consult the log to see which corrections to make.

View the activated card

Run the Get Card or Get Account Cards endpoint and check card_status.