API Quick Start Overview

Welcome to Rail's API Quick Start guides! These comprehensive, step-by-step guides will help you integrate Rail's powerful financial infrastructure into your application.

What You'll Find Here

The API Quick Start section contains hands-on guides that walk you through common integration scenarios. Each guide includes:

  • ✅ Complete code examples with curl commands
  • ✅ Step-by-step instructions
  • ✅ Request and response samples
  • ✅ Best practices and gotchas
  • ✅ Links to relevant API documentation

Prerequisites

Before diving into these guides, you'll need:

  1. Sandbox Access - Request access here to get your client ID and secret
  2. OAuth2 Credentials - Your client ID and secret for authentication
  3. Development Environment - A terminal or API client (Postman, Insomnia, etc.)

Core Development Guides

🔐 Register for Webhooks

Set up real-time event notifications for your application.

What You'll Learn:

  • How to register webhook subscriptions
  • Implementing webhook endpoints on your server
  • Verifying webhook signatures for security
  • Handling webhook events and implementing idempotency
  • Best practices for webhook reliability

Use Cases:

  • Real-time balance updates
  • Transaction notifications
  • Application status changes
  • Compliance event monitoring

Start the Webhooks Guide →

👤 Customer Onboarding

Onboard individual and corporate customers through the Applications API.

What You'll Learn:

  • Creating applications for individuals and corporations
  • Uploading KYC/KYB documents
  • Retrieving document IDs from status endpoint
  • Handling application status changes
  • Multi-provider processing

Scenarios Covered:

  • Individual customer onboarding (6 steps)
  • Corporate customer onboarding with beneficial owners (7 steps)

Key Concepts:

  • Application status flow (INCOMPLETE → READY FOR SUBMISSION → SUBMITTED → APPROVED)
  • Changes requested handling
  • Provider approval timing

Start the Customer Onboarding Guide →

💼 Account & Funds Management

Open accounts, manage funds, and track incoming deposits.

What You'll Learn:

  • Opening deposit accounts for customers
  • Monitoring account status changes
  • Setting up webhooks for account events
  • Getting deposit instructions (ACH, FEDWIRE, SWIFT)
  • Tracking incoming deposits and transactions
  • Account readiness verification

Important Topics:

  • Account status meanings and lifecycle
  • When to show accounts as "ready" to users
  • Deposit instructions for multiple payment rails
  • Transaction vs deposit concepts
  • Webhooks vs polling strategies

Best Practices:

  • Always verify account status before requesting deposit instructions
  • Use webhooks for real-time monitoring
  • Implement proper account card readiness checks
  • Handle provider approval timing

Start the Account Management Guide →

💸 Withdrawals

Process withdrawals to external bank accounts and crypto wallets.

What You'll Learn:

  • Creating counterparties (external destinations)
  • Initiating fiat and crypto withdrawals
  • Handling Auto-RFI document requirements
  • Managing withdrawal lifecycle
  • Counterparty management operations

Scenarios Covered:

  • Simple withdrawal (below Auto-RFI threshold)
  • Withdrawal with Auto-RFI (above threshold, requires documents)

Key Concepts:

  • Counterparty types (FIAT_US, CRYPTO, etc.)
  • Auto-RFI process (similar to application onboarding)
  • Withdrawal status flow
  • Document upload requirements

Best Practices:

  • Verify account balance before creating withdrawals
  • Use status endpoint to check for Auto-RFI triggers
  • Match asset types between accounts and counterparties
  • Set up webhook subscriptions for withdrawal events

Start the Withdrawals Guide →

Use Case Build Guides

In addition to the core development guides above, we also provide complete use case examples that demonstrate end-to-end workflows:

💵 Payments - Collections

Accept payments from customers via various payment methods.

View Collections Guide →

🔼 On-Ramp

Enable customers to send fiat currency, buy cryptocurrencies, and hold or withdraw digital assets.

Complete Flow:

  1. Authenticate
  2. Create fiat and crypto accounts
  3. Deposit fiat funds
  4. Exchange fiat for crypto
  5. Withdraw crypto to external wallet

Start the On-Ramp Guide →

🔽 Off-Ramp

Allow customers to send digital assets, swap for fiat, and withdraw to bank accounts.

Complete Flow:

  1. Authenticate
  2. Create crypto and fiat accounts
  3. Deposit crypto funds
  4. Exchange crypto for fiat
  5. Withdraw fiat to bank account

Start the Off-Ramp Guide →

🏦 Wallet as a Service

Embed fully compliant digital currency wallets into your application.

Features:

  • Multi-currency support
  • Custody with qualified custodians
  • Deposit, hold, transfer, exchange, and withdraw

Start the Wallet Guide →

Learning Path Recommendations

New to Rail? Start Here

  1. Customer Onboarding - Learn how to onboard customers
  2. Account & Funds Management - Open accounts and accept deposits
  3. Register for Webhooks - Set up real-time notifications
  4. Withdrawals - Enable customers to send funds out

Building Specific Use Cases?

Additional Resources

API Documentation

For complete API reference documentation with all endpoints, parameters, and schemas:

View Full API Documentation →

Core Concepts

Understand the fundamental concepts behind Rail's platform:

Developer Quick Start

Essential topics for all Rail integrations:

Getting Help

Contact Support

Common Questions

Q: Can I use these guides in production? A: These guides use sandbox endpoints and test data. For production, update the base URLs and use your production credentials.

Q: How do I get sandbox credentials? A: You will receive your sandbox credentials (client ID and secret) from your implementation manager when you begin working with Rail. If you don't have credentials yet, contact us to get started.

Q: How long does sandbox onboarding take? A: Once you have credentials, sandbox accounts are typically approved within minutes. Production accounts follow standard compliance timelines.

Q: Do I need to implement all guides? A: No - implement only the guides relevant to your use case. Most integrations start with Customer Onboarding, Account Management, and Webhooks.

Q: Can I test webhooks locally? A: Yes! Use tools like ngrok to expose your local server, or use webhook testing services like webhook.site during development.

Q: What's the difference between collection and environment variables in Postman? A: Collection variables are stored within the collection itself, making it portable and easier to share. Environment variables are separate and require additional setup.

Next Steps

  1. Get Sandbox Access - Request credentials if you haven't already
  2. Import Postman Collection - Get started with pre-built requests
  3. Choose Your First Guide - Pick a guide based on your use case
  4. Set Up Webhooks - Implement real-time notifications early
  5. Test in Sandbox - Thoroughly test your integration
  6. Go Live - Contact your account manager when ready for production

Ready to build? Pick a guide above and start integrating!

Need personalized guidance? Reach out to your implementation engineer or contact support@layer2financial.com.

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