The Unified Card Issuance is designed to give your business complete flexibility over how capital is accessed and managed. A single, unified platform that allows you to issue and manage cards for any use case, whether it’s giving an employee a corporate expense card or providing a customer with a personal card.

Type of Unified Cards

There are two primary types of cards to suit operational needs:

1. Debit Cards: These cards are linked directly to a Passport account, giving users immediate access to their funds online, or through ATMs and POS machines. We support issuance for:
   1. Individual Customers: Issued directly to the account holder.
   2. Business Customers: Issued to Authorized Signatories or Beneficial Owners.
2. Prepaid Cards: Designed for corporate control, these are pre-funded instruments used to cover day-to-day business expenses such as travel, meals, lodging, and incidentals.

Note: Prepaid cards are exclusively available for Business Customers.

How to Issue a Card

Issuing a Debit/ Prepaid Card

You can issue both Debit and Prepaid cards using a single Unified API endpoint.

1. To begin, you can Issue a Card using the POST /v1/customer/id/{customer_id}/issuance/card endpoint. This single endpoint handles the logic for both card types “DEBIT” where the card is linked directly to the customer's Passport account balance and “PREPAID” to create a pre-funded expense card (Business Only).

   Field	Mandatory	Description (with Possible Values)
   cardholder.type	Yes	Specifies the type of cardholder. It can beAUTHORIZED_USER, BENEFICIAL_OWNER.
   cardholder.id	Yes	Unique identifier of the cardholder within the system. (Numeric or String ID)
   type	Yes	Defines the funding type of the card. Possible values: PREPAID, DEBIT.
   cardProgram.id	Yes	Unique identifier of the configured Card Program under which the card is issued. (Numeric ID)
   issuanceType	Yes	Determines how the card is issued. Possible values: DIGITAL, DIGITAL-FIRST (Physical if supported by the program).
   shippingDetail	Conditional	Required when issuing a Physical Debit card. Contains shipping information for card delivery.
   shippingDetail.address.id	Conditional	Internal system identifier of the shipping address. (Numeric ID)
   shippingDetail.expressDelivery	Conditional	Indicates if expedited shipping is requested. Possible values: true, false.

2. Once a card is issued, you can fetch the specific record by calling Retrieve Card at GET /v1/customer/id/{customer_id}/issuance/card/id/{card_id} endpoint where id is the Unique card id of the issued card.

Issuing a Physical Card

If a user was originally issued a virtual-only card but later requires a plastic card for ATM access or in-person payments, you do not need to create a new account.

1. You can order a Physical Card by calling POST /v1/customer/id/{customer_id}/account/id/{account_id}/debitCard/id/{card_id}/issuePhysicalCard endpoint. This endpoint initiates the manufacturing and shipping process to the card holder address.
2. For security, all physical cards are shipped in a "Frozen" or "Inactive" state to prevent fraud during transit. Once the cardholder receives the plastic card, you must explicitly unlock "Card Present" transactions by calling POST /v1/customer/id/{customer_id}/account/id/{account_id}/debitCard/id/{card_id}/enablePhysicalCard. This step confirms the chain of custody and activates the card for use at Point-of-Sale terminals.

Viewing the Issued Cards

You can List all Issued Cards through your card base using this POST /v1/customer/id/{customer_id}/issuance/card/list endpoint. This allows you to filter results via "type" (Prepaid vs. Debit), status (Inactive vs. Active), cardHolder.typeetc.

Once your Unified Card is issued successfully, you can then proceed with other Card actions.

Card Embossment

Card embossment refers to the physical process of imprinting or raising characters on a card. For physical Debit or Prepaid cards issued through Priority, this typically includes:

• Cardholder name
• Card number (PAN)
• Expiration date

Within the Priority Unified Cards program, embossment applies only to Physical Cards. When issuing a physical card, the required embossing details are configured as part of the card issuance process.

Note: Depending on your Card Program configuration, cards may use traditional raised embossing or modern flat printing, particularly in digital-first programs.

Open Questions

1. How do we mention “Auto-issuance” use case ? Shall it be included here ?

See Also