Manage credit termsPrivate preview

Learn how to manage the credit terms for connected accounts.

Change your credit terms by updating a connected account’s credit_limit_amount or credit_period_interval. You can also deactivate a connected account’s ability to spend funds supported by your platform’s Issuing account.

Update the credit limit

You can increase or decrease a connected account’s credit limit by updating their CreditPolicy’s credit_limit_amount at any time. The following example increases the connected account’s credit limit from 1,000 USD to 2,000 USD:

Example response

{
  "livemode": true,
  "credit_limit_amount": 200000, // 2,000.00 USD
  "credit_limit_currency": "usd",
  "credit_period_interval": "month",
  "credit_period_interval_count": 1,
  "days_until_due": 1,
  "last_effective_attributes": {
    "effective_until": time_of_update_to_credit_limit,
    "credit_limit_amount": 100000,
    "credit_period_interval": "month",
    "credit_period_interval_count": 1,
    "days_until_due": 1,
    "status": "active"
  },
  "upcoming_attributes": null
}

This action triggers an issuing_credit_policy.updated webhook event and immediately updates the credit_limit_amount field on the CreditPolicy.

Use caution when decreasing the credit_limit_amount on an account because it can lead to instant authorization declines if the account has already spent more than the new credit_limit_amount.

Update the credit period

You can change a connected account’s credit period by updating the fields in the upcoming_attributes hash. You must pass in an effective_at timestamp when setting the upcoming_attributes to schedule when you want the changes to take effect. We recommend that you notify the connected account about the changes to their credit period (your Collections and Servicing Policy might require this).

Using our previous example, let’s say Gymbox decides to change Barbell’s credit period interval from monthly to 15 days, and Gymbox wants this change to take effect at the start of the next month. Gymbox updates the connected account’s CreditPolicy as follows, using the upcoming_attributes hash:

The activation timestamp of the credit policy must be at the 00:00 UTC mark.

Example response

{
  "livemode": true,
  "credit_limit_amount": 200000,
  "credit_limit_currency": "usd",
  "status": "active",
  "credit_period_interval": "month",
  "credit_period_interval_count": 1,
  "days_until_due": 1,
  "last_effective_attributes": {
    "effective_until": 11223344,
    "credit_limit_amount": 100000,
    "credit_period_interval": "month",
    "credit_period_interval_count": 1,
    "days_until_due": 1,
    "status": "active"
  },
  "upcoming_attributes": {
    "effective_at": 12345678,
    "credit_period_interval": "day",
    "credit_period_interval_count": 15,
    "days_until_due": 0,
    "status": "active"
  }
}

At the effective_at timestamp, the CreditPolicy will be automatically updated to what was in the upcoming_attributes hash:

{
  "livemode": true,
  "credit_limit_amount": 200000,
  "credit_limit_currency": "usd",
  "status": "active",
  "credit_period_interval": "day",
  "credit_period_interval_count": 15,
  "days_until_due": 0,
  "last_effective_attributes": {
    "effective_until": 12345678, // 1st day of the next month, 00:00 UTC
    "credit_limit_amount": 200000,
    "status": "active",
    "credit_period_interval": "month",
    "credit_period_interval_count": 1,
    "days_until_due": 1
  },
  "upcoming_attributes": null
}

This triggers an issuing_credit_policy.updated event. At the effective_at timestamp when the credit period changes take effect, the FundingObligation for the current period is finalized and a new FundingObligation is created to mark the start of a new credit period on the new credit terms.

Deactivate the CreditPolicy

Temporarily stop using your platform Issuing account to support a connected account’s spend by deactivating its CreditPolicy. To do so, the connected account must have a balance of 0 or above. If you deactivate the CreditPolicy and the connected account doesn’t have sufficient funds, Stripe declines authorizations on the connected account’s cards. You can reactivate the CreditPolicy at any time.

Example response

{
  "livemode": true,
  "credit_limit_amount": 200000,
  "credit_limit_currency": "usd",
  "status": "inactive",
  "credit_period_interval": "day",
  "credit_period_interval_count": 15,
  "days_until_due": 0,
  "last_effective_attributes": {
    "effective_until": time_of_deactivation,
    "credit_limit_amount": 200000,
    "status": "active",
    "credit_period_interval": "month",
    "credit_period_interval_count": 1,
    "days_until_due": 1
  },
  "upcoming_attributes": null
}

This status change triggers an issuing_credit_policy.updated event. When you deactivate a CreditPolicy, you’ll continue to receive FundingObligation updates for the next 31 days to account for any cleared Transactions, because authorizations that happened before deactivation can be captured up to 31 days later.

Revoke the funding_credit capability

If you decide to stop using your platform Issuing account to support a connected account’s spend altogether, revoke their funding_credit capability. The connected account must have a 0 or positive balance at this stage.

You must deactivate the account’s CreditPolicy before you revoke the funding_credit capability. You can request the funding_credit capability again in the future for the same connected account. If you request the capability for the same connected account again, they don’t need to re-accept the terms.

If the connected account maintains an active card_issuing capability, you can still issue cards for the connected account. However, you must add funds into the connected account’s Issuing balance for their cards to work.

Summary of webhooks

As a reminder, you can monitor these two webhooks:

issuing_credit_policy.created: Triggers whenever a CreditPolicy is created, which happens when the capability is requested for the connected account.
issuing_credit_policy.updated: Triggers whenever a CreditPolicy is updated, which can happen when the platform updates the connected account’s policy.