1. Guides
2. Moov accounts

Moov accounts fall into three categories based on how they interact with Moov’s platform and money movement flows: partner, merchant, and individual. Moov’s API doesn't always assign explicit account types when requesting IDs, for example. Use this guide to understand Moov's three account types and how to identify various ID use cases.

Throughout our documentation, you may see the phrase connected account. A connected account is any account that is linked to another Moov account. A connected account can be a merchant/business or individual account.

Partner account

Partners are Moov’s direct customers—the platforms, SaaS providers, or marketplaces integrating with Moov’s API. Partners are responsible for initiating API calls, managing webhooks, and facilitating the overall user experience for their downstream users. An example of a partner account is a gig platform using Moov to pay their drivers and accept payments from customers.

As a partner, when you sign up for Moov, we'll create an account for you. Your partner account has different access to Moov's platform than other types of Moov accounts. A partner account:

• Holds Moov API keys and acts as the technical integrator
• Undergoes full underwriting and has a commercial agreement with Moov
• Controls onboarding, compliance flows, and payment initiation for users
• Provides embedded payments for users
• Functions as merchants if directly processing payments

Our API might explicitly ask for a partnerAccountID, or it might just ask for an accountID.

For example, when interacting with POST /accounts/{accountID}/transfers, you must specify your (partner) accountID. This is also true for scopes, your (partner) accountID is required:

• /accounts/{accountID}/transfers.write
• /accounts/{accountID}/transfers.read

Merchant accounts

The partner account creates and onboards Moov accounts for each end user (i.e., customers, merchants). An example of a merchant account is a restaurant using a food delivery platform that runs on Moov to accept card payments. A merchant is typically the business end of the transaction, accepting payments or sending payouts.

The partner account is responsible for onboarding all merchant accounts. If a merchant account requires anything beyond the transfers capability, they must:

• Accept Moov's platform terms of service agreement
• Undergo the underwriting process
• Undergo Know Your Customer (KYC) verification

Merchant accounts may pay for processing directly, depending on their corresponding platform agreement with you (the partner) and Moov. You can set different processing fees per merchant.

Individual accounts

An individual account is an end-user or consumer who receives a payout or pays for goods and services. An example of an individual account is a delivery driver receiving payouts or a customer paying for a good or service through a merchant checkout flow.

Individual accounts:

• Represent the final party in a transaction flow
• Do not directly hold API credentials or control money movement
• May be charged processing fees (surcharges or transaction fees) depending on the partner or merchant’s configuration

Capabilities

You'll request access to capabilities when creating an account. Each capability has different requirements depending on if the account is an individual or business account. Familiarize yourself with capabilities requirements before creating an account (you can also request capabilities after account creation).

Click on the capability to view the requirements for each account type.

Depending on the capabilities requested for merchant Moov accounts, you may need to provide additional information about the account in order for Moov to start the automatic verification process. For more information, read our verification guide.

Platform terms of service agreement

If an account requests a capability that requires acceptance of Moov's terms of service, you must display a link to the Moov platform agreement in your application. Use the terms of service Drop to collect user agreements. See the platform terms of service agreement guide for more information and implementation instructions.

Financial ownership

Moov is required to certify beneficial ownership, which is any individual with ≥25% ownership of the business, or someone with significant responsibility to control or manage the business, like an executive officer or director. Moov refers to these individuals as business representatives. Moov must verify business representatives before a business account send funds or collect funds from other accounts.

Representatives can be created via the Dashboard or the API.

Dashboard

The Dashboard will bring you through the entire owner flow, which incudes creating owners and providing ownership percentage. Once you finish the process, if any information is missing, you'll receive a notification in the Dashboard. Once all owners have been created, and all required information is entered, Moov can begin account verification.

API

Use the representatives POST endpoint to create each owner. For each owner, set isOwner to true, as well as provide the ownershipPercentage. If a representative does not own ≥25% of the company, they are not considered a beneficial owner. You can set isOwner to false and leave the ownershipPercentage field blank.

After you've created all the owners, patch the profile's business object by setting ownersProvided to true using the accounts PATCH endpoint. This indicates to Moov the profile is complete, and verification can begin.

Next steps

Familiarize yourself with Moov's capabilities and account requirements. When you're ready to create user accounts, see our create accounts or hosted onboarding guide.