Customers
Customers, belonging to clients are End Users of the system. Customers can be businesses, accredited investors or individuals. Customers have 1 or more Accounts and Payors.
Creating a new Customer
There are 2 different ways to create a new customer:
Applications
An Application collects required Know Your Business (KYB) and/or Know Your Customer (KYC) data on the customer. This data is validated, approved by Rail and its relevant partners to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. When creating the application, you have to pass it a customer_id which is your unique reference for the customer in your systems. Once the KYB, KYC information is validated and approved, the customer and a default Account are created in Rail. Click here to learn more on Applications.
Customers
If you are a regulated Financial Institution, you can skip the Application process and create a Customer using the customers endpoint. When creating the customer, you have to pass it a customer_id which is your unique reference for the customer in your systems. To learn more about how external identifiers work, click here.
NOTE: In sandbox, you have to create a customer via the Applications endpoint. You will have 2 default customers created for you, one corporate and one individual.
Retrieving Customer(s)
To get details on a specific customer, use the customers/{customer_id} endpoint
You can retrieve all the customers using the customers endpoint. You can provide filter criteria in the query parameters such as type and status.
Updating Customer Details
Once the Customer is provisioned, you then have to use the PATCH customers/{customer_id} endpoint
Status
The field status is informs what state the customer is in and how it can be used.
Rules
Each status enforces rules as to what actions can be performed on a customer.
- Read - is the customer information visible.
- Update - can the customer information / status be updated.
- Transact - can a customer send/receive fund.
Possible next status
A customer is limited by what status it can be set to based on their current status. E.g. a customer in FROZEN cannot be set to PENDING.
| Status | Description | Rules | Possible Next Status |
|---|---|---|---|
ACTIVE |
Customer is fully operational. | Read ✅ Update ✅ Transact ✅ |
EDD, DORMANT, CLOSED, FROZEN |
CLOSED |
Customer is not operational. A customer cannot be updated from Closed status. | Read ✅ Update 🚫 Transact 🚫 |
No possible next status |
EDD |
Customer requires enhanced due dilligence. Customer is still operational. | Read ✅ Update ✅ Transact ✅ |
ACTIVE, CLOSED, FROZEN |
PENDING |
Customer is being AML checked. | Read ✅ Update ✅ Transact 🚫 |
ACTIVE, CLOSED |
FROZEN |
Customer is not operational until due dilligence checks are made. | Read ✅ Update ✅ Transact 🚫 |
ACTIVE, CLOSED, EDD |
DORMANT |
Customer is operational but has not been used in 12 months. | Read ✅ Update ✅ Transact ✅ |
ACTIVE, CLOSED, EDD |
Rail Statuses
-> Statuses may have 'l2f' after the status e.g.PENDING_L2F. This means that the customer requires action by Rail. Customers in these statuses can only be updated by Rail.