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Opening a bank account

Opening a bank account has been simplified with the use of bank products. Rather than specify all of the specific attributes when opening a bank account, we now only need to know which bank product the account relates to, and information about the owners, controllers, and beneficiaries related to the bank account.

Prerequisites

  • You will need your bank-account-product-accounts-url (shown as $BANK_ACCOUNT_PRODUCT_ACCOUNTS in the examples below). Your bank-account-product-accounts-url is one of the URLs returned when you list your bank-account-products. If you're unfamiliar with them, learn more about bank products.

  • To get your bank-account-product-accounts-url you will need your organization-bank-accounts-url. Your organization-bank-accounts-url is one of the URLs returned when you request your organization-url. If you don't have your organization-url yet, check out our getting started guide.

Request

  • Set the owner-url to the legal person URL who is entitled to the money in the account
  • Set the beneficiary-url to the legal person URL who is entitled to the money in the account
info

All bank account products require you to specify an owner (except operational accounts), but not all require a beneficiary (although if you specify a valid one the request will still be accepted)

curl "https://api.griffin.com${BANK_ACCOUNT_PRODUCT_ACCOUNTS_URL}" \
-X 'POST' \
-H "Authorization: GriffinAPIKey $GRIFFIN_API_KEY" \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data '
{
"display-name": "account name",
"owner-url": "/v0/legal-persons/lp.IGxlZ2FsLXBlcnNvbi1pZA",
"beneficiary-url": "/v0/legal-persons/lp.IGxlZ2FsLXBlcnNvbi1pZA"
}'

Response

{
"account-submissions-url": "/v0/bank/accounts/ba.IGJhbmstYWNjb3VudC1pZA/submissions",
"bank-account-product-url": "/v0/bank/products/bp.IGJhbmstcHJvZHVjdC1pZA",
"account-restricted": false,
"account-payments-url": "/v0/bank/accounts/ba.IGJhbmstYWNjb3VudC1pZA/payments",
"pooled-account-memberships-url": "/v0/bank/accounts/ba.IGJhbmstYWNjb3VudC1pZA/membership",
"account-admissions-url": "/v0/bank/accounts/ba.IGJhbmstYWNjb3VudC1pZA/admissions",
"bank-product-type": "savings-account",
"display-name": "Reserve a/c",
"controller-url": "/v0/legal-persons/lp.IGxlZ2FsLXBlcnNvbi1pZA",
"pooled-funds": false,
"account-status": "closing",
"owner-url": "/v0/legal-persons/lp.IGxlZ2FsLXBlcnNvbi1pZA",
"created-at": "2019-08-24T14:15:22Z",
"opened-at": "2019-08-24T14:15:22Z",
"close-account-url": "/v0/bank/accounts/ba.IGJhbmstYWNjb3VudC1pZA/actions/close",
"available-balance": {
"currency": "GBP",
"value": "00.00"
},
"bank-addresses": [
{
"account-holder": "string",
"bank-id-code": "gbdsc",
"bank-id": "123456",
"account-number": "12345678",
"account-number-code": "bban"
}
],
"account-transactions-url": "/v0/bank/accounts/ba.IGJhbmstYWNjb3VudC1pZA/transactions",
"account-url": "/v0/bank/accounts/ba.IGJhbmstYWNjb3VudC1pZA",
"beneficiary-url": "/v0/legal-persons/lp.IGxlZ2FsLXBlcnNvbi1pZA",
"primary-account": false,
"account-balance": {
"currency": "GBP",
"value": "00.00"
},
"savings-type": "easy-access"
}

This response indicates that you have successfully requested the creation of a new bank account. The account-status will likely be opening since their are some background preparatory tasks that need to finish befoe the account can be used. These take place automatically, so you can simply poll the account-url endpoint until the account-status is open.

NOTE: If you have created a webhook for your organisation you can also listen for the account-status-updated webhook event and track account-status.

Learn more about the account lifecycle.