Create consumer cards

Airwallex's consumer cards enable you pay out to consumers using the issued cards. Consumer use cases include: influencers, gig- economy workers, general payroll, etc. Airwallex has the licenses and infrastructure to support consumer card use cases across a number of jurisdictions worldwide.

Depending on your business requirements, you may also be required to integrate with Airwallex’s Banking as a Service offering and onboard your customers as an Individual (not a Business) to access consumer cards.

This tutorial guides you through the steps for creating personalized consumer cards.

Create a consumer card

Submit Create a cardAPI request by providing the following fields:

• program.purpose: Set this to CONSUMER to indicate that you want the card issued to a customer onboarded to the platform as an Individual.
• program.type: The type of card. If you do not provide a value, the default configuration on your account setting is used. Possible values: PREPAID, DEBIT, CREDIT or DEFERRED_DEBIT.
• program.sub_type: Sub type of the program. This is used for specific products under the defined program types, for example, B2B_TRAVEL which designates BINs for travel use cases such as OTAs.
• is_personalized: You must set this field to true to issue a consumer card.
• form_factor: The form of the card either VIRTUAL or PHYSICAL (if applicable for your region). For information on requirements for physical cards, see Physical cards.
• cardholder_id: The ID of an INDIVIDUAL type cardholder to associate this consumer card with. Use the cardholder_id returned in Create a CardholderAPI response.
• created_by: Your full legal name.
• request_id: Specify a unique request ID.
• authorization_controls.allowed_transaction_count: Specify whether the card is a single (SINGLE) or multi-use (MULTIPLE) card. Single-use cards can only be used for one successful transaction.
• authorization_controls.allowed_transaction_limits: Set limits on transactions such as transaction amount, intervals, etc. See Transaction limits.

Program combinations

The following explorer shows how region, program.type, program.sub_type, and funding source work together for consumer cards (program.purpose CONSUMER). Wallet-funded combinations debit your Airwallex Wallet and do not require a funding_source_id. For the full matrix, see Program combinations.

Example request (Consumer card)

1curl -X POST https://api.sandbox.airwallex.com/api/v1/issuing/cards/create \
2  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {{ACCESS_TOKEN}}' \
3  -d '{
4    "program": {
5      "purpose": "CONSUMER",
6      "sub_type": "GOOD_FUNDS_CREDIT",
7      "type": "CREDIT"
8    },
9    "is_personalized": true,
10    "cardholder_id": "52646a67-878f-46d6-b4b1-02601cd4c553",
11    "form_factor": "VIRTUAL",
12    "authorization_controls": {
13      "allowed_merchant_categories": [],
14      "allowed_transaction_count": "MULTIPLE",
15      "transaction_limits": {
16        "currency": "USD",
17        "limits": [
18          {
19            "amount": 100,
20            "interval": "ALL_TIME"
21          }
22        ]
23      }
24    },
25    "created_by": "John Smith",
26    "request_id": "d1064ar2-8ff0-4f9a-a5be-6d34dea8dc69"
27  }'

Example response (Consumer card)

1{
2 "authorization_controls": {
3     "allowed_currencies": [],
4     "allowed_merchant_categories": [],
5     "allowed_transaction_count": "MULTIPLE",
6     "transaction_limits": {
7         "currency": "USD",
8         "limits": [
9              {
10                  "amount": 100.0,
11                  "interval": "ALL_TIME"
12              },
13              {
14                   "amount": 10000.0,
15                  "interval": "PER_TRANSACTION"
16              }
17         ]
18     }
19 },
20 "brand": "VISA",
21 "card_id": "c39977fe-aab9-4361-a6c1-a99324e6d2f7",
22 "card_status": "PENDING",
23 "cardholder_id": "52646a67-878f-46d6-b4b1-02601cd4c553",
24 "created_at": "2024-03-07T02:54:05.363+0000",
25 "created_by": "John Smith",
26 "form_factor": "VIRTUAL",
27 "is_personalized": true,
28 "name_on_card": "name on card",
29 "program": {
30      "purpose": "CONSUMER",
31      "sub_type": "GOOD_FUNDS_CREDIT",
32      "type": "CREDIT"
33 },
34 "purpose": "BUSINESS_EXPENSES",
35 "request_id": "d1064ar2-8ff0-4f9a-a5be-6d34dea8dc69",
36 "updated_at": "2024-03-07T02:54:05.363+0000"
37}

Card API response

The response returns the card object with all the request fields, and the following card details:

• card_id: A unique identifier of the card object. You can use this to:
  • Retrieve the full PAN and CVV of the consumer card using Get sensitive card detailsAPI, only if you are PCI compliant (see Retrieve sensitive card details).
  • Check if you have sufficient funds on the card for your future spend using Get card remaining limitsAPI.
  • Retrieve details of the card object including card status anytime using Get card detailsAPI. If you want to retrieve details of all cards issued to your account, see Get all cardsAPI.
  • Update the card object for transaction limits, allowed currencies, allowed merchant categories, etc., using Update a cardAPI.
• card_number: A masked card number.
• card_status: The status of the card (see Card statuses). A virtual card will automatically transition from PENDING to ACTIVE so you can use the card to transact immediately. For physical cards, see Activate a card.

Next steps

• Set up authorization controls
• Create physical cards
• Add cards to digital wallets
• Retrieve sensitive card details