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The Secured Smart Card is a charge card: the cardholder must pay the balance in full each cycle, and the balance cannot roll over. Its spending power is tied to the available balance on a linked deposit account. As the cardholder spends, available funds in that account decrease and so does the card’s spending power; when the balance is repaid, spending power is restored. Why FinTechs choose it
  • Runs on credit rails, which generally offer higher interchange than debit
  • No underwriting or credit check is required
  • Payment history can be reported to the bureaus, so it works as a credit builder
  • Risk is mitigated by the linked deposit account
Credit products require specific privileges on your organization. Contact your Synctera representative before planning one.

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What You Are Building

The product comprises two accounts:

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Step 1 — Create and Verify the Customer

A person must be set up and KYC/KYB verification completed. See Create a Personal Customer and KYC/KYB Verification.

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Step 2 — Record Disclosures

When the consumer is being onboarded:
  1. USA Patriot Act Notice
  2. E-Sign
  3. Privacy Notice
After the consumer has been onboarded:
  1. Smart card account agreement
  2. Security agreement
  3. Authorization for automatic payments from the security account (optional — see Step 6)
See Record Disclosure Acceptance.

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Step 3 — Create the Application

A charge secured account can optionally include an application, created through the Application API. See Credit Applications. If an application is denied — whether for KYC failure or another reason — adverse action reasons must be sent to personal customers, and the adverse action ID included in the application when its status is marked CREDIT_DENIED. This is optional for business customers. See Adverse Actions.

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Step 4 — Create the Accounts

Create the deposit account that will act as security, then the CHARGE_SECURED account linked to it. See Secured Charge Accounts, which covers using a customer DDA as the linked deposit account and creating the charge secured account itself.

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Step 5 — Issue the Card

Issue against the charge secured account with "type": "CREDIT". Physical and virtual cards are both supported. See Card Issuance and Management.

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Step 6 — Enable Autopay, If Offered

When setting up a charge secured account with system autopay, you have two paths:
  • Opt in during onboarding. Send the SC_AUTO_PAYMENT disclosure as ACKNOWLEDGED when the customer opts in, then create the charge secured account with is_system_auto_pay_enabled set to true.
  • Opt in later. Create the charge secured account with the default is_system_auto_pay_enabled of false. When the customer opts in, send the SC_AUTO_PAYMENT disclosure as ACKNOWLEDGED, then patch is_system_auto_pay_enabled to true.
Synctera validates that is_system_auto_pay_enabled cannot be set to true for a charge secured account unless that customer has acknowledged the autopay disclosure.

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Step 7 — Issue Statements

At the end of each month, issue a combined statement covering both accounts. See Secured Charge Statements.