A bank account is where a business is paid into, where Priority takes its fees from, or both. One account can serve more than one purpose. Accounts belong to the business, and a location can link to the accounts it uses. Card processing needs a funding and a billing account at each location before underwriting, the review Priority runs before it can approve the business. Bank accounts are optional for Treasury and payout services. For the full field list, jump to the Request reference.

Common use cases

• Add the funding account where settled card sales land. See Scenario 1.
• Link an account to a location, or give each location its own account. See Bank accounts for a location.

Scenarios

A bank account is written in full and read back with the account number masked. You send the real accountNumber; PCE returns only its last four digits as accountNumberLast4. The routing number is returned in full.

Before you begin (all scenarios)

• You have a sandbox API key. See Getting started.
• You have the businessId of the business you're adding the account to.
• You have the full account number and the nine-digit routing number.
• You set a unique externalId for safe retries.

Scenario 1: Add a bank account

Make a POST request to /v1/businesses/{businessId}/bank-accounts. This account both receives the business's card settlements and pays its fees.

curl -X POST https://sandbox-api.prioritycommerce.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/bank-accounts \
  -H "x-api-key: <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "externalId": "example-funding-1",
    "purposes": ["funding", "billing"],
    "accountType": "checking",
    "accountNumber": "000123456789",
    "routingNumber": "000000000",
    "bankName": "Example Bank",
    "countryCode": "US",
    "isPrimary": true
  }'

Response: 201 Created.

{
  "id": "ba_5e9c21",
  "uri": "/v1/businesses/{businessId}/bank-accounts/ba_5e9c21",
  "externalId": "example-funding-1",
  "purposes": ["funding", "billing"],
  "accountNumberLast4": "6789",
  "routingNumber": "000000000",
  "accountType": "checking",
  "bankName": "Example Bank",
  "countryCode": "US",
  "isPrimary": true,
  "createdAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-15T09:00:00Z"
}

Store the id. PCE masks the account number to accountNumberLast4 and returns the routing number in full, so keep your own record of the full account number. See Data handling and compliance.

Manage bank accounts

Request reference

Next steps

See also

• Create a business: add bank accounts inline in the create call
• Businesses: how bank accounts fit the entity model
• Status lifecycle: how the business moves through underwriting
• Data handling and compliance: how account numbers are masked and stored