Account Funding Transactions

Account Funding Transactions (AFT) are a type of transaction where money is being transferred to fund another account, rather than directly purchasing goods and services.

These are often used by merchants offering specialized financial services, including

• Money transfer services
• Prepaid card services
• "Stored value" wallet platforms
• Funding of bank or brokerage accounts

AFTs are a "pull" transaction-- they transfer money from the customer to the merchant. They should not be confused with Original Credit Transactions (OCTs) which "push" funds from the merchant to a customer.

Platform Support

Account Funding Transactions are currently supported on the Tsys and Worldpay (formerly Vantiv, Host and Terminal Capture) platforms, and only for Visa and Mastercard card types. Only specific Merchant Category Codes are eligible to issue AFTs, depending on platform:

Tsys Platform Restrictions

Worldpay Platform Restrictions (Mastercard Only)

Worldpay does not currently have any restrictions for specific MCCs on Visa transactions. Any Visa-specific aft_identifer can be used.

Sending an AFT

Account Funding Transactions can be sent through the Payment API. They follow the same basic syntax as a regular sale or authorization-only transaction, but add additional fields to specify the type of AFT and its recipient. Each platform and card brand has specific requirements.

aft_identifier - specifies the Business Application Identifier (Visa) or Transaction Type Identifier (Mastercard) code for the transaction. This tells the network what type of AFT is being performed. See below for a list of values. Required for all AFTs.

aft_recipient_name - the first and last name of the recipient. Required for all Mastercard AFTs.

shipping_state - used for the recipient's state. Required for Mastercard on Worldpay platforms only.

shipping_country - used for the recipient's country. Required for Mastercard on Worldpay platforms only.

aft_recipient_account - the account number or other identifier for the recipient of the AFT. Format will vary based on aft_recipient_type. Required for Mastercard on Worldpay platforms only.

aft_recipient_type - the type of account or ID that's used to specify the recipient. See below for a table of appropriate values. Required for Mastercard on Worldpay platforms only.

Example Request

This example performs an "wallet transfer" AFT transaction, taking $23.50 from John Doe's MasterCard ending in 4444, while reporting that the intent of the payment is to fund his wallet account W12345678.

curl --request POST \
     --url https://sandbox.nmi.com/api/v5/payments/sale \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --header 'Authorization: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' \
     --data '{
       "amount": 23.50,
       "aft_identifier": "F61",
       "aft_recipient_name": "John Doe",
       "aft_recipient_type": "wallet_id",
       "aft_recipient_account": "W12345678",
       "payment_details": {
         "card_number": "5555555555554444",
         "card_exp": "1229"
       },
       "billing_address": {
         "first_name": "John",
         "last_name": "Doe",
         "address1": "123 Main Street",
         "address2": "Apt E",
         "city": "Wichita",
         "state": "KS",
         "zip": "12345",
         "country": "US",
         "phone": "8005551212",
         "email": "[email protected]"
       },
      "shipping_address": {
        "state": "AZ",
        "country": "US"
     }'

aft_identifier Values

aft_recipient_type values

API Response Values

When an account funding transaction is performed, three new fields are available to include in the API or reporting output:

is_aft: a true/false value indicating if the transaction was relayed as an AFT

aft_identifier: returning the aft_identifier value you provided during the request

aft_recipient_name: returning the aft_recipient_name value you provided during the request