Creating Real-Time Funding Accounts

This guide explains how to use the Create Account endpoint to set up RTF funding and RTF spending accounts. Read About Real-Time Funding for an explanation of these account types.

Related documentation:

• About Real-Time Funding — Explanation of what real-time funding is, with use cases.
• Testing Real-Time Funding in CV — How to run tests for RTF accounts
• Real-Time Funding Transaction Examples — How various RTF transaction types look in the ledger.

Create an RTF funding account

To create an RTF funding account, use one of these options:

• Use the account-creation functionality in the CST.
• Call the Create Account endpoint. Do not use any other endpoint. Go to Creating an Account for general instructions on populating the call and consult the table below for RTF funding–specific information.

An RTF funding account must be in status: N to fund RTF spending accounts. Any other status prevents the automated funds transfer between funding and spending accounts. However, these non-active statuses may permit ACH transfers and manual adjustments into or out of the RTF funding account. Consult Account Statuses to see what each status permits.

Create an RTF spending account

You have these options for creating a spending account:

• In the CST, go to the RTF funding account's page. At the bottom of the left navigation, expand the Real Time Funding tab and select Create Spending Account.
• Begin enrollment with the Start Enrollment endpoint, then create the account and card with the Complete Enrollment endpoint. Use this method when you are using Galileo's integrated customer ID verification and you do not want to create an account until after the cardholder's identity has been verified.
• Call the Create Account endpoint. Use this method for most cases. Go to Creating an Account for general instructions on populating the call, especially if using Galileo CIP, and consult the table below for RTF spending-specific information.

Managing Real-Time Funding

Although RTF accounts have many similarities with conventional accounts, there are some differences, as shown in the sections below.

Viewing RTF accounts

When you create an RTF funding account or an RTF spending account, that account will be included in the Customer Master RDF and the Account Card RDF (RTF spending account only). However, there is no field in the RDFs to link the spending and funding accounts.

To see which RTF funding account is associated with an RTF spending account, you have these options:

• Retrieve the PRN with the Get RTF Account Relationship endpoint.
• Capture the PRN of the RTF funding account in the fund_pmt_ref_no field in Events API webhook messages.
• Go to the landing page for the spending account in the CST.

To see which RTF spending accounts are associated with an RTF funding account, you can either:

• Use the Get RTF Account Relationship endpoint.
• In the CST, on the RTF funding account page, at the bottom of the left navigation, expand the Real Time Funding tab and select the list of spending accounts.

To check the balance of an RTF funding account, you can:

• Capture the fund_pastotb value in the Events API webhook messages.
• View the balance on the RTF funding account's landing page in the CST. On the landing page for a spending account you can also see the RTF funding account's balance.
• Call the Get Balance endpoint with the PRN of the RTF funding account as the accountNo.

Viewing RTF transactions

To identify the transfers between the RTF funding account and RTF spending accounts, Galileo has created these otypes (transaction types). All transfers are adjustments (act_type: AD). The type (otype) and type_description fields in the table below are from the Get All Transaction History endpoint response.

The funding transactions are visible as follows:

• Program API response — Get All Transaction History returns all funding transfers as well as authorizations and settlements. Other endpoints that return transactions (Get Transaction History, Get Authorization History, Get Account Overview) return the authorizations and settlements for RTF spending accounts but not the funding transactions.
• Posted Transactions RDF — The Base RDF contains the funding transfers as well as settlements.
• B2B Customer Master Supplemental RDF — Lists spending accounts with the associated funding account.
• gAnalytics

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Note

See Real-Time Funding Transaction Examples to see how the funding transactions interact with various transaction types.

Setting limits on RTF accounts

When you set up your RTF spending product, you set velocity limits for the product (amount per transaction, amount per week) as well as MCC and merchant ID limits. To set these same limits on a per-account basis, use Galileo's Account-Level Authorization Controls.

On the RTF funding product you can set up limits for ACH and Program API transfers.

Adjusting spending account balances

In most cases, every RTF spending account transaction triggers the complementary transaction into or out of the RTF funding account, so that the spending account always has 0.00 balance. However, there might be edge cases where the spending account ends up with a non-zero balance.

To adjust the balance back to 0.00, use the Create Adjustment endpoint. Set the includeRtfTransaction parameter to 0 to prevent the amount from adjusting the corresponding funding account.

For example, if an RTF spending account has a 0.05 balance, call Create Adjustment with these values:

• amount: 0.05
• debitCreditIndicator: D
• includeRtfTransfer: 0
• type: Select from the curated list of otypes that Galileo gave you

The result is that the RTF spending account has 0.00 balance again, and its RTF funding account is not affected.

Conversely, if you want to adjust the RTF spending account such that it does affect the RTF funding account, set includeRtfTransfer: 1. (The default is 1, so you can also leave it blank.) For example, if you need to award 34.00 in provisional credit for a dispute, call Create Adjustment with these values:

• amount: 34
• debitCreditIndicator: C
• includeRtfTransfer: 1 or blank
• type: tc

The result is that 34.00 is credited to the RTF spending account, and then it is immediately moved into the RTF funding account.

Reissuing or replacing spending cards

The reissue and replacement processes for RTF spending cards (including lost or stolen) are identical to the conventional procedures but with one exception: because the spending account always has an available balance of zero, attempting to assess a card-replacement (REP) or card-reissue (REI) fee will fail, which causes the reissue or replacement process to prematurely stop.

To address this issue, set the RINFP parameter on the spending card product, which assesses the fee on the funding account. Keep in mind that assessing these fees can drive the funding account negative.

Events API webhooks

The same Authorization Events and Settlement Event messages are sent for the RTF spending account transactions as for conventional transactions, such as BAUT: auth, DAUT: denied_auth, and SETL: setl.

However, you will have new fields enabled for those messages:

• fund_pastotb — The available balance in the funding account, after the current transaction has taken place. This value is not available for denied authorizations.
• fund_pmt_ref_no — The PRN of the RTF funding account associated with the RTF spending account.

No event messages are sent for transfers between the RTF funding account and the RTF spending accounts.

Closing an RTF spending account

You can close an RTF spending account the same way that you close a conventional card account, using Modify Status. If you select a type that closes related accounts, the RTF funding account is not affected.

Closing an RTF funding account

When you close an RTF funding account, all of the associated RTF spending accounts become unusable—all authorization requests are denied because the available balance for the cards is 0.00 but no funds can be added to the accounts at authorization time.

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Warning

You cannot migrate RTF spending accounts to a different RTF funding account.

To close an RTF funding account, call Modify Status with the desired type:

• 2 — Change status to D (deactivated)
• 13 — Change status to C (canceled)
• 16 or 20 — Change status to Z (canceled without refund)

Adjusting spending account balances

The Galileo system is designed to automatically move funds from the RTF spending account to the RTF funding account whenever the RTF spending account sends or receives funds. However, in some rare cases, it is possible that a non-zero balance remains in the RTF spending account.

To adjust the RTF spending account back to zero, use the Create Adjustment endpoint with includeRtfTransfer: 0 so that the RTF funding account is not affected. You might want to request that Galileo create a type that indicates a purely administrative adjustment, or you can choose from among the otypes that you already have.

RTF accounts and other Program API endpoints

The behavior of some other Program API endpoints is slightly different with RTF accounts:

• Get Related Accounts — Cannot be used to show the relationships between RTF funding and RTF spending accounts; instead, use Get RTF Account Relationship.
• Add Account — Cannot be used to create an RTF funding account. Can be used to create an RTF spending account or to add accounts to an RTF spending account, but the balance cannot be shared.
• Switch Product — Both RTF funding and RTF spending accounts can switch products, but only if the new product is in the same product category as the old product, i.e., RTF funding to RTF funding, and RTF spending to RTF spending. If an invalid switch is attempted, the endpoint returns status_code: 590-02 (Product cannot be switched to an unauthorized product).
• Add Card — Cannot be used to add cards to an RTF funding account. Can be used to add a card to an RTF spending account.
• Modify Status — Some of the values of type have different behavior with RTF accounts:
  • A type such as 2, 13, 16 and 20 cancels a card and/or its account, plus related accounts. When an RTF spending account is canceled in this manner, the RTF funding account is not affected.
  • A type that affect cards, such as reissue, freeze/unfreeze or lost/stolen, cannot be used on RTF funding accounts.
• Get Account Overview, Get Transaction History — For an RTF spending account, only the authorizations and settlements are returned, as well as conventional payments and adjustments. The RTF funding transactions are not returned. For an RTF funding account, all of the funding transfers (FY, FZ) are returned as well as other payments and adjustments.
• Get All Transaction History — For an RTF funding account all funding transfers (FY, FZ) are returned as well as other payments and adjustments. For an RTF spending account, all transactions including the funding transfers (SY, SZ) are returned.
  • To all three transaction-retrieval endpoints there is a new field added in the response, depending on whether the accountNo is an RTF funding or RTF spending account:
    • spending_account_prn — Contains the PRN of the associated RTF spending account for FY and FZ transactions.
    • funding_account_prn — Contains the PRN of the associated RTF funding account for SY and SZ transactions.