My application is set up so that when a customer signs up with our app, one of the first actions is we ask them to link a bank account. We’ve got the Plaid/Dwolla link working correctly and we’ve created a Verified Customer with a source funding URL correctly.
In our app, we are looking to let these Verified Customers transfer money to charitable causes. We would only have the routing number and account number of each cause.
We cannot find a way in the API to do this kind of transfer = verified customer -> routing/account number
If this is not possible in the current API, would you be able to offer an alternative? Would the charitable cause need to register in our app so we can get their Plaid/Dwolla information and create a fundingDestUrl for them? This is an extra step we were hoping to skip.
Hi @bluedevil2k – I’m afraid there isn’t a way to transfer funds to a bank account without having a Customer account to attach it to. However, since your Senders are already onboarded as Verified Customers, you could create a lightweight Receive-only user for the Receiver (Charity) to attach the bank to. Receive-only users only need to submit their first and last names and their email address in order to create an account!
Hope that workaround helps! Please let us know if you come across any questions!
Since emails are unique (they respond with result._embedded.errors[0].code === “Duplicate”) on the Dwolla platform, this method books the unconfirmed email the sender writes in (we use firebase auth to confirm email before creating a bidirectional customer). Can we have a dummy variable for the sender to be forced to enter as an email, or make the email for a receive-only customer non-unique?
After thinking for a bit, the best practice may be to add an unverified receive-only funding source instead of another customer (w/ an unconfirmed email) so they don’t clog the email name but use the correct routing/account that is non-unique across Dwolla verified(bidirectional)/unverified(receive-only) customers. My flow will delete the funding-source after the payment is sent. Can I have your thoughts on this flow?
Of course, from https://docs.dwolla.com/#remove-a-funding-source “We recommend not removing funding sources until all transfers have been processed . Removing a funding source prior to a transfer processing may result in funds being processed to a balance funding source rather than the intended bank funding source.”
Hi @NickCarducci – would you be able to give us a quick overview of your use case?
It sounds like you’re looking to creating two Customer accounts under the same email? If so, you could potentially use an alias with the email in order to pass our uniqueness validation.
For example, the sender (who would need to be a Verified Customer in order to transact with a Receive-only user) could be created with the email: name@email.com, while the receiver (Receive-only user) could be created with the email: name+somealias@email.com.
Hi @shreya , i have a question. How can we transfer from verified customer to receive only user customer if the receive only user don’t have any funding source linked to it?
Hi @sonam – in order to create transfers to/from banks using Dwolla there needs to be a funding-source account created for the Customer. So, I’m afraid the above would not be possible to accomplish within the Dwolla network.
Are you looking to have a user outside of Dwolla be able to pull funds from a Verified Customer’s Dwolla Balance using a virtual Account and Routing number set? If so, VANs may be what you’re looking for!
spencer
(Spencer Hunter - Lead Developer Advocate @ Dwolla)
8
Hi @sonam , A few issues with your particular request. 1) VANs can only be added as a funding source to the Verified Customer type and not a Receive-only user. 2) VANs are a premium feature that require additional approval from Dwolla. In this process, your account would be configured to associate VANs to Verified Customers underneath your Dwolla client account.
Hi @spencer , i had this api implemented last year and it was working absolutely fine as i was able to add a VAN account for Receive-only user which @shreya suggested above. But today i checked it again, now it gives this error. Is anything changed from last year regarding VAN?
