Individual vs business — which flow am I in?
Our banking partner has two distinct customer types, and they don’t mix. Their onboarding, KYC, collections, and payouts are separate journeys. Pick the one that matches who is sending the money.
| Individual | Business / treasury | |
|---|---|---|
| Who the sender is | Your end-user (e.g. a Pouch app user) | Your own merchant entity |
| You’re moving | Money on behalf of an end-user | Your own funds |
| Customer record | One per end-user — POST /v1/customers with type: individual | Your merchant entity, onboarded with Technest (KYB) |
| Collections (receiving) | The end-user’s own virtual account (GBP/USD/EUR) or CAD Interac | The merchant’s international accounts |
| Payouts (sending) | sender_customer_id = the end-user; funds leave the end-user’s own account | No per-payout sender; funds leave the merchant’s international account (treasury mode) |
| Payout gate (GBP/USD/EUR) | Sender’s own active VBA → else sender_account_not_provisioned | Merchant’s active international account → else no_active_international_account |
| CAD | Interac e-Transfer (both flows) | Interac e-Transfer (both flows) |
Most remittance integrators (IMTOs, MSBs, EMIs moving money on behalf of end-users) are in the individual flow. If you’re paying your own suppliers/payroll from your own balances, you’re in the business / treasury flow. Your account’s sender mode (per_user vs treasury) decides which gate applies — set by Technest at onboarding.
Individual flow (this section)
End-to-end, all via the public API:
- Onboard —
POST /v1/customerswithtype: individual.id_expiry_dateis required (the banking partner needs it to provision a virtual account and it can’t be added after verification). - Verify — upload identity documents. Verification is automatic once documents are attached (a few minutes, up to ~2h).
POST /v1/customers/{id}/kycis an acknowledgement, not a separate submit. - Collect — issue the end-user their own VIBAN (GBP/USD/EUR) or use CAD Interac.
- Send —
POST /v1/payoutswithsender_customer_id= the verified end-user. Funds leave the end-user’s own account. See the payouts reference.
Business / treasury flow
The merchant entity is onboarded as a business customer with Technest (KYB — beneficial owners + business documents, reviewed in roughly 1–5 business days). Once live, the merchant sends international payouts from its own merchant-level international accounts in treasury mode: no per-payout sender_customer_id, and the GBP/USD/EUR gate checks the merchant’s international account (no_active_international_account).
Business KYB onboarding (owners + KYB documents) is completed with Technest, not self-serve via this API today. Contact support@the-technest.com to start.
Saving recipients works for both
POST /v1/beneficiaries only requires the international-accounts feature flag — not an international account in that currency. A beneficiary is a sender-agnostic saved recipient; whether funds can actually move depends on the sender at payout time (the gates above). The capability check lives in POST /v1/payouts, not at recipient-save time.