Account holders and accounts have a 1:1 relationship. When an account holder is successfully created, an associated account is also created.

Many programs require the account holder to go through a Know Your Customer (KYC) process to verify the identity of the individual. We support the following types of workflows for onboarding an individual:

• KYC_BASIC offers identity verification with an immediate accepted or rejected decision, and no remediation opportunity.
• KYC_BYO allows an API user to bypass the Lithic KYC process and create an individual account (available only to users with KYC processes pre-approved by Lithic).
• KYC_EXEMPT allows certain programs to enroll users as KYC-exempt. This includes programs whose account holders do not require any KYC or programs that wish to supplement business account holder objects with representations of individual cardholders. You can use the KYC-exempt workflow to create account holders. KYC-exempt allows an API user to pass in a smaller set of PII to create an account holder (available only to users approved by Lithic on a program by program basis).

Create Individual Account Holders

The Create an Individual or Business Account Holder endpoint is used to create an account holder and initiate the appropriate onboarding workflow.

If the program does not require KYC or the client is managing KYC outside of Lithic (KYC_EXEMPT or KYC_BYO) an associated account_token will be returned in the responses, which can then be used to issue cards.

If Lithic is performing KYC (KYC_BASIC) and the account holder is successfully verified or requires further verification, an associated account_token will be returned in the response, which can then be used to issue cards once the workflow indicates an ACCEPTED status. In certain cases, responses from this endpoint may indicate the workflow is under review or further action is needed to complete the account creation process. If using a workflow with asynchronous responses, we recommend first setting up webhooks to be notified of events (see Create Webhook for KYC/KYB Status) relating to the outcomes of the workflows.

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As a reminder, while using this endpoint is an important part of ensuring your card program is compliant with relevant government and banking regulations, you are responsible for all financial activity on api.lithic.com associated with your API key. This endpoint is intended to be used for KYC/KYB compliance purposes, and not as a comprehensive fraud solution.

Potential Outcomes by Workflow Type

Update Individual Account Holder

API Reference: Update account holder information

Get Specific Account Holder

API Reference: Get account holder

Create Webhook for KYC/KYB Status

You can create a webhook to be notified of updates to the status of any in-process KYC or KYB evaluation. We send three types of events related to accountholders via our Events platform: account_holder.created, account_holder.updated, and account_holder.verification. You can also see examples of these three events in Sandbox using Send Example Event Types.

KYC Workflow Diagrams and Expected Response Times

Expected Response Times:

• Steps 1 + 2 - Customer submits required PII and receives response containing status for the account holder: Up to 5 seconds

Expected Response Times:

• Steps 1 + 2 - Customer makes call with required PII and receives response containing status for the account holder: Up to 3 seconds
• Steps 2 + 3 - Customer receives pending review status from the initial call, then subsequently receives a webhook containing final status for the account holder: Up to 48 business hours

Failure Reasons

KYC Failure Reasons

When a KYC evaluation fails, one or more of the following reasons will be returned in the response (contained in status_reasons).

Simulating Account Holder Creation in Sandbox

See Simulating Account Holder Creation page for detail.