Set up credit for connected accountsPrivate preview
Learn how to configure credit terms for your connected accounts and fund their spend from your platform.
The Credit APIs are used to manage the credit terms for your connected accounts. Subject to your credit policy with your bank partner, you can select the connected accounts that are eligible to receive credit, set their credit limit and period, and enable them to spend and repay their expenses at the end of their credit period.
Prerequisites 
- Register your platform.
- Add business details to activate your account.
- Complete your platform profile.
- Customize brand settings. Adding a business name, icon, and brand color is required for Connect Onboarding.
- The Issuing Credit beta is enabled for your account. Contact your Stripe account representative for more details.
See the Custom Connect account creation guide to get set up.
Request the `card_issuing_charge_card` capability for your connected accounts
In addition to the transfers capability required for issuing cards, you must enable and activate the card_ capability for each connected account whose spend you want to support using your platform’s available funds (this includes your platform’s resources if you’re prefunding). The card_ capability enables a connected account to issue cards on their account and make charges up to their credit limit, provided that your platform Issuing account has sufficient available funds to support the charges. If you’re creating a new connected account on your platform, you can add the card_ capability in the same way you request other capabilities. For existing connected accounts, you can request the card_ capability through an update account API call.
Record the user’s application details and approved credit limit
Each time a user completes and submits an application for credit to your platform, record their application details and the decision to approve or reject with the Credit Underwriting Record API.
First, use the create_from_application endpoint to record the time the application was submitted, the purpose (credit_ for new users), and the applicant’s name and email in the credit_user hash. You can specify how you received the application with application_method, but if you don’t provide a value it defaults to online.
Example response
{ "object": "issuing.credit_underwriting_record", "id": "cur_1NiHAD2eZvKYlo2CmWGpt5OX", "credit_user": { "name": "Barbell Gym", "email": "barbell-gym@gmail.com" }, "created_from": "application", "application": { "purpose": "credit_line_opening", "submitted_at": 1681138952, "application_method": "online" }, "decision_deadline": 1683601352 // 30 days after submission }
To approve the application, use the report_decision endpoint with the ID from the response, and set the decision type to credit_, and provide the approved amount.
All received applications must be recorded. See Report other credit decisions for details on how to report applications that are rejected, incomplete, or withdrawn by the applicant.
Accept Charge Card terms to activate the `card_issuing_charge_card` capability
After requesting the card_ capability for a connected account, activate the capability by completing the card_ requirements and accepting the connected account agreements including (but not limited to) Cross River Bank’s Charge Card Terms of Service.
These terms of service establish the credit relationship between the bank partner originating the credit and the connected account. You must include these terms during your onboarding flow and receive explicit acceptance from your user.
Also include additional charge card terms of service between you and the connected account. Include the important terms set out in your credit policy with the bank partner, such as fees, repayment period, rewards, and rules around how a connected account’s credit limit is set. Only record acceptance in the API after the account has agreed to the terms in your onboarding flow.
Determine the credit period and activate the credit line
Before taking any actions described in this section, consult your bank partner’s credit policy.
The CreditPolicy stores the credit limit and credit period for your connected account.
When the card_ capability becomes active, Stripe creates an empty, inactive CreditPolicy for the connected account, triggering the issuing_ webhook event.
To set the credit_ you must use the same amount you approved in the application decision, or CreditPolicy will return an error.
In our example of Gymbox, let’s say Gymbox wants to extend Barbell (a gym) a 1,000 USD credit limit to be repaid on the 15th of each month. Gymbox makes the following call to configure Barbell’s connected account:
You can set the credit_ property to end the month on any day (1 through 28), or use 31 to set the last day of the month regardless of how many days are in the month.
Example response
{ "livemode": true, "credit_limit_amount": 100000, "credit_limit_currency": "usd", "status": "active", "credit_period_interval": "month", "credit_period_interval_count": 1, "credit_period_ends_on_days": [15], "days_until_due": 0, "last_effective_attributes": { "effective_until": "time_of_update", "credit_limit_amount": null, "credit_period_interval": null, "credit_period_interval_count": null, "credit_period_ends_on_days": null, "days_until_due": null, "status": "inactive", }, "upcoming_attributes": null }
You can both update and activate the CreditPolicy at the same time, as pictured above. You can also separately activate the policy after setting the fields.
Example response
{ "livemode": true, "credit_limit_amount": 100000, "credit_limit_currency": "usd", "status": "active", "credit_period_interval": "month", "credit_period_interval_count": 1, "days_until_due": 1, "last_effective_attributes": { "effective_until": "time_of_update_to_active", "credit_limit_amount": 100000, "credit_period_interval": "month", "credit_period_interval_count": 1, "days_until_due": 1, "status": "inactive", }, "upcoming_attributes": null }
Each of these actions trigger separate instances of the issuing_ webhook event.
After you activate the CreditPolicy, your platform’s available spend applies toward the spend of all of the connected account’s cards, up to the credit limit you set for the connected account. These cards only draw on your platform’s available spend when there are insufficient funds on the connected account’s Issuing balance.
After there are no available funds on the connected account’s Issuing balance and the connected account has reached its credit limit, Stripe automatically declines authorizations. Stripe creates a FundingObligation to help you manage and monitor the amount owed by the account throughout the credit period.
You can future date when the credit period of a credit policy comes into effect using the upcoming_attributes hash and the effective_ timestamp.
See Managing account obligations for information on using the FundingObligation to keep track of your connected accounts’ spend and outstanding balance.
Create cards and cardholders
After you set up your connected account for credit by activating the CreditPolicy, you can generate virtual or physical cards for your connected account to use against their credit limit.