Working with financial accounts

After you gain API access to Financial Accounts for platforms, Stripe attaches a financial account to your platform account and enables you to provision financial accounts for eligible connected accounts on your platform. Each financial account has its own distinct balance of funds, separate from the balance of the account it’s linked to. For example, the owner of a connected account on your platform might have a 100 USD connected account balance and a 200 USD financial account balance. In this scenario, the connected account owner has a sum of 300 USD spread between their financial account and connected account balances. These two balances remain separate, but the API provides the ability to move money from the connected account balance to the financial account balance.

In the Stripe API, FinancialAccount objects serve as the source and destination of money movement API requests. You request Features through the API to assign to FinancialAccounts that provide additional functionality for the financial accounts on your platform. For example, to enable payment card features on a specific financial account, you send an API request with the FinancialAccount ID for the card_issuing feature. See Financial account features for more information on Feature objects. See the Available features section within that guide to check required connected account capabilities for each Feature.

Before you create financial accounts in live mode for your Financial Accounts for platforms integration, we recommend you first create test financial accounts in a sandbox environment. Test financial accounts can’t receive or send real money, can’t be used in live mode, and don’t generate a live account with real routing and account information, but are otherwise identical in configuration and functionality.

Create a FinancialAccount

Use POST /v1/treasury/financial_accounts to create FinancialAccounts. Include the connected account ID as the value of the Stripe-Account header of the call to associate the FinancialAccount with a connected account.

Your platform account and connected accounts can have multiple financial accounts associated with them. You can create another financial account on your connected account by providing the connected account ID as the value of the Stripe-Account header. You can associate a maximum of 3 financial accounts to a single connected account (closed financial accounts don’t contribute to the limit). The same limit applies to the number of financial accounts attached to the platform account. If you need a higher account threshold, contact treasury-support@stripe.com.

The following JSON defines the FinancialAccount object structure:

{
  "object": "treasury.financial_account",
  "created": 1612927106,
  "id": "fa_123",
  "country": "US",
  "supported_currencies": ["usd"],
  // Arrays of active, pending and restricted features summarize the status of all requested features
  "active_features": ["financial_addresses.aba", "deposit_insurance"],
  "pending_features": ["inbound_transfers.ach"],
  "restricted_features": ["intra_stripe_flows", "outbound_payments.ach", "outbound_payments.us_domestic_wire"],
  "balance": {
    "cash": {"usd": 9000},
    "inbound_pending": {"usd": 0},
    "outbound_pending": {"usd": 1000}
  },
  // The FinancialAccount gains a FinancialAddress once the `financial_addresses.aba` feature is active. For more information, see "Activating features"
  "financial_addresses": [
    {
      "type": "aba",
      "supported_networks": ["ach", "domestic_wire_us"],
      "aba": {
        "account_number_last4": "7890",
        // Use the expand[] parameter to view the `account_number` field hidden by default
        "account_number": "1234567890",
        "routing_number": "000000001",
        "bank_name": "Goldman Sachs"
      }
    }
  ],
  "livemode": true,
  // Financial accounts begin in the "open" state, but can be closed
  // `status_details.closed` is populated once a financial account is closed
  "status": "open",
  "status_details": {
    "closed": {
      // List of one or more reasons why the FinancialAccount was closed:
      // - account_rejected
      // - closed_by_platform
      // - other
      "reasons": [],
    }
  },
  // User-defined metadata
  "metadata": {},
  "nickname": {},
  // Restrictions that the platform can apply to the FinancialAccount
  "platform_restrictions": {
    "inbound_flows": "unrestricted",
    "outbound_flows": "restricted"
  },
}

Typically, you also request financial account features when you make the API request to create the account. Regardless of the Features you request, the connected account must have the treasury capability enabled. If you’re unsure if the connected account has the capability, use GET /v1/accounts/{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}} to check. The account’s capabilities hash must have a treasury value of active.

…
  "capabilities": {
    "card_issuing": "active",
    "card_payments": "active",
    "transfers": "active",
    "treasury": "active",
    "us_bank_account_ach_payments": "active"
  },
…

If you want to issue cards attached to the financial account balance, your platform’s connected accounts must also have the Issuing (card_issuing) capability enabled. The connected account must have this capability before you can request the card_issuing feature for its financial account. If the connected account doesn’t have the capability, attempting to create a FinancialAccount with a request for the card_issuing feature results in an error.

Set the nickname field of a FinancialAccount object to designate a custom name for the financial account. You can use nicknames to create identifiers, which is useful when working with multiple financial accounts under a single connected account. Valid nicknames must:

• Be a non-blank string
• Contain less than 250 characters

If you don’t provide a nickname upon account creation, the nickname field will be empty and will return null. You can update nicknames after creating a FinancialAccount.

The following request creates a financial account assigned to the connected account with the ID assigned in the Stripe-Account header.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/treasury/financial_accounts \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: 
{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}
" \
  -d "supported_currencies[]"=usd \
  -d nickname={{OPTIONAL_NICKNAME}} \
  -d "features[card_issuing][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[deposit_insurance][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[financial_addresses][aba][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[inbound_transfers][ach][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[intra_stripe_flows][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[outbound_payments][ach][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[outbound_payments][us_domestic_wire][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[outbound_transfers][ach][requested]"=true \
  -d "features[outbound_transfers][us_domestic_wire][requested]"=true

The response is a FinancialAccount object to confirm financial account creation.

{
  "object": "treasury.financial_account",
  "created": 1612927106,
  "id": "{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}}",
  "country": "US",
  "supported_currencies": ["usd"],
  "active_features": [
    "card_issuing",
  ],
  // Features that require activation enter a pending state before activating

Update a FinancialAccount

Use POST /v1/treasury/financial_accounts/{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}} to update the FinancialAccount with the associated ID. Include the connected account ID as the Stripe-Account header value. The following example updates the metadata of the FinancialAccount.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/treasury/financial_accounts/
{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}} \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: 
{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}
" \
  -d "metadata[key]"=value

Retrieve a FinancialAccount and account number

Use GET /v1/treasury/financial_accounts/{{FINANCIALACCOUNT_ID}} to retrieve the FinancialAccount with the associated ID. Include the connected account ID as the Stripe-Account header value.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/treasury/financial_accounts/
{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}} \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: 
{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}
"

By default, the account number for a financial account isn’t included in the response. To retrieve the account number, include the financial_addresses.aba.account_number field in the expand array.

curl -G https://api.stripe.com/v1/treasury/financial_accounts/
{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}} \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: 
{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}
" \
  -d "expand[]"="financial_addresses.aba.account_number"

If successful, the response returns the FinancialAccount object with or without the account number depending on the inclusion of the expand array.

{
  "id": {{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}},
  ...
  "financial_addresses": [
    {
      "aba": {
        "account_holder_name": "jenny",
        "account_number": "4242424242420239",
        "account_number_last4": "0239",
        "bank_name": "Stripe Test Bank",
        "routing_number": "000000001"
      },
      ...
    }
  ],
  ...
}

For more information on the expand parameter, see expanding responses.

Feature summary

The FinancialAccount object contains a summary of the state of all its Features in three arrays - active_features, pending_features, and restricted_features.

{
  "object": "treasury.financial_account",
  "id": "fa_987",
  "status": "open",
  ...
  "active_features": ["card_issuing"],
  "pending_features": ["financial_addresses.aba"],
  "restricted_features": ["outbound_transfers.ach"],
}

These arrays provide a convenient way to see:

• Inactive features (included in pending_features or restricted_features)
• Active features (included in active_features)
• Restricted features that require action (included in restricted_features)

See Financial account features for more information.

Close a FinancialAccount

You can permanently close a financial account if it meets the following conditions:

• There are no pending inbound transfers.
• All attached Issuing cards are canceled.
• The account balance is zero and the account has no activity in the past 75 days. Alternatively, you can provide another financial account or verified external account to forward incoming debits and credits to.

Closing a financial account has no impact on data retention for associated objects, such as Transactions.

FinancialAccount closure using the API

You can use POST/v1/treasury/financial_accounts/{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}}/close to close the financial account with the associated ID. Include the associated connected account ID as a header value.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/treasury/financial_accounts/{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}}/close \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
: \
  -X "POST" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: {{CONNECTED_STRIPE_ACCOUNT_ID}}"

curl -X POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/treasury/financial_accounts/
{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}}
/close \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: 
{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}
"

The response is the FinancialAccount object with a status of closed to confirm the action.

{
  "id": "{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}}",
  "object": "treasury.financial_account",
  "status": "closed",
  "status_details": {
    "closed": {
      "reasons": ["closed_by_platform"]
    }
  },
  "active_features": [],
  "pending_features": [],
  "restricted_features": ["financial_addresses.aba"],
  ...
}

Handling transactions on closed accounts

In rare circumstances, financial accounts might receive credits or debits on closed accounts that Stripe can’t return automatically. As a platform owner, you’re responsible for negative balances incurred after account closure. Stripe support works with you to return any remaining funds owed to the seller or service provider and to remediate closed accounts with a negative balance. By including forwarding settings when closing a financial account, Stripe can automatically forward debits and credits to the selected account.

Provide forwarding settings when you close the financial account. The following example uses an external bank account as the forwarding account.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/treasury/financial_accounts/
{{FINANCIAL_ACCOUNT_ID}}
/close \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -H "Stripe-Account: 
{{CONNECTED_ACCOUNT_ID}}
" \
  -d "forwarding_settings[type]"=payment_method \
  -d "forwarding_settings[payment_method]"=
"{{PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}}"

Webhooks

You can create financial accounts before fulfilling onboarding requirements. In this case, the financial account opens asynchronously and then triggers a treasury.financial_account.features_status_updated webhook with an updated view on any features still restricted due to outstanding onboarding requirements.

• account.updated
  • When requesting new Features, the platform might get an account.updated webhook prompting that the requirements hash has changed and some new fields are now in pending_verification.
• treasury.financial_account.created
  • Triggered whenever a new FinancialAccount is created.
• treasury.financial_account.closed
  • Notifies when the status of the top-level FinancialAccount changes to closed.
• treasury.financial_account.features_status_updated
  • Indicates that one or more Features have changed status. This is reflected in changes to the active_features, pending_features or restricted_features arrays.