The Round Up feature is a way to accumulate funds based on card purchases. For example, if a purchase amount is 20.52, when that transaction settles, Galileo rounds up the amount to the next whole number and moves the difference into another account. In this case, it moves 0.48 into another account.

In this way, cardholders can build up savings accounts, contribute to a centralized charitable fund, move funds into other card accounts, or move funds into multiple other types of accounts.

Use cases

These use cases describe a few ways to use the Round Up function. You can devise other methods for your cardholders to leverage Round Up.

Use case 1: Build up a savings account

The cardholder wants to move the Round Up funds into her savings account.

  1. Create the card account with Create Account. The PRN is 22222.
  2. Create the savings account with Add Account. The PRN is 44444.
  3. Set up the Round Up relationship with Set Round Up Accounts, using these values:
    • accountNo: 22222
    • linkedAccounts: {'44444': 100}

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Note

If you are using Galileo's legacy implementation of Round Up, you can move Round Up funds only from a primary account to a linked secondary account, and there can be only one secondary savings account per primary account. The secondary account must have a product ID that has been set up for Round Up, and the accounts cannot share a balance. For the newer implementation of Round Up, any two accounts with any two product IDs can be linked for Round Up; however, they still cannot share a balance.

Alternate setups

  • The cardholder can distribute funds between one secondary savings account and another account such as a DDA, as long as the accounts all have a different balance IDs. For example, if the cardholder has one secondary savings account, and two additional DDAs, the accounts can each receive 33% of the Round Up amount, or the amount can be distributed as 20%, 30%, 50%.
  • The cardholder can set a threshold amount so that only Round Up amounts equal to or lower than the threshold will be transferred.

Use case 2: Contribute to a central fund

A business distributes spending cards to its employees, and the Round Up funds go into a central account that is used for charitable donations. The business has placed a limit of 0.75 on the Round Up transfers; if the amount is higher, then the settlement amount is not rounded up, and no funds are moved.

  1. Galileo sets the RFGTA parameter to 75.
  2. Create the central account with Create Account. The PRN is: 33333
  3. Create the spending accounts using Create Account.
  4. For each spending account, use Set Round Up Accounts to set up the relationship:
    • accountNo: <spending PRN>
    • linkedAccounts: {'33333': 100}

Alternative setups

  • The business can create multiple charitable accounts, and each employee can determine how to distribute the funds across the accounts.
  • The business can remove the threshold level, so any Round Up amount is valid.

Use case 3: Build up multiple accounts

A cardholder wants to divide Round Up funds evenly between two card accounts that belong to his children.

  1. Create the parent's card account with Create Account. The PRN is 77777.
  2. Create each child's card account with Create Account. These accounts can be standalone primary accounts or secondaries to the parent's account. The PRNs are 88888 and 99999.
  3. Use Set Round Up Accounts to divide the Round Up amount.
    • accountNo: 77777
    • linkedAccounts: {'88888': 50, '99999': 50}

Alternative setups

  • Instead of moving the Round Up funds into card accounts, the parent can create savings accounts for each child and move the funds there.
  • The parent could also divide up the Round Up distributions between the card and savings accounts, either evenly or using different proportions.

Round Up transaction sequence of events

This scenario explains how Use Case 2 would play out when three cardholders make purchases.

  1. Cardholder 1 makes a purchase of 34.57. Galileo places a 34.57 hold on the account and sends the BAUT: auth event message.
  2. Cardholder 2 makes a purchase of 78.01. Galileo places a 78.01 hold on the account and sends BAUT: auth.
  3. Cardholder 3 makes a purchase of 21.79. Galileo places a 21.79 hold on the account and sends BAUT: auth.
  4. Two days later, the network sends a settlement batch file that contains all three transactions.
  5. Galileo settles the first transaction for 34.57 and moves 0.43 into the central fund. Galileo sends the SETL: setl and BADJ: adj messages for the cardholder account and the BPMT: pmt message for the central fund.
  6. Galileo settles the second transaction for 78.01 and sends the SETL: setl event message for the cardholder account. The amount is not rounded up because 0.99 is higher than the threshold amount of 0.75.
  7. Galileo settles the third transaction for 21.79 and moves 0.21 into the central fund. Galileo sends the SETL: setl and BADJ: adj messages for the cardholder account and the BPMT: pmt message for the central fund.
  8. A total of 0.84 has been deposited into the central account.

Insufficient Round Up funds

Because the Round Up amount is not part of the authorization hold, it is possible that when the transaction settles, there are insufficient funds for the Round Up transfer. In that case, Galileo does not transfer any funds. Round Up transfers cannot drive an account negative.

Viewing Round Up transactions

The Round Up funds moving out of the card account is an adjustment (act_type: AD), and the funds moving into the Round Up account is a payment (act_type: PM). The default otypes (transaction types) are:

  • rg — Payment into the Round Up account
  • RG — Adjustment out of the card account

You can arrange with Galileo to specify different otypes for your Round Up transfers by setting product parameters.

Tracking Round Up transactions

The BADJ: adj and BPMT: pmt event messages do not contain the auth_id or setl_dtl_id for the transaction that triggered the Round Up transfer. However, the source_id for both the BPMT: pmt and the corresponding BADJ: adj will contain the same value.

You might be able to infer which transaction triggered the Round Up transfer by correlating the SETL: setl timestamp with the amount in cents of the potential Round Up transfer. For example, if a BPMT: pmt into the Round Up account is for 0.37, and a SETL:setl near the same time is for 84.63, it is possible that the transfer corresponds to that transaction.

Enabling Round Up transactions

The legacy method of enabling individual accounts for Round Up is to call Set Account Feature with featureType: 11 and featureValue: Y. For the newer method, this step is not necessary.

Galileo setup

Galileo will configure these product parameters according to your use case.

ParameterDescription
RFGDAContains a custom payment type for funds moving into the Round Up deposit account. When this parameter is not set, the value is rg.
RFGUAContains a custom adjustment type for funds moving out of the card account. When this parameter is not set, the value is RG.
RFGTASpecifies a Round Up threshold value. If the amount to round up is greater than the value in this parameter, then no round up occurs. When this parameter is not set, there is no threshold limit for Round Up. Valid values are integers 1 through 99.