Virtual Card Creation

With the Create Virtual Card API, you can create virtual cards that your customers can use instantly once they have been created/issued and funded.

Create a card holder

To successfully create a virtual card, you must first create a card holder, the user to whom the card will be issued. A card holder can request and manage more than one virtual card.

To create a card holder, make a POST request to the endpoint:

{{baseurl}}/api/v1/cardholders

These are the parameters of the request body:

Field	Data Type	Description
`first_name`	String	Required. The first name on the card
`last_name`	String	Required. The last name on the card
`email`	String	Required. The email of the card holder
`phone`	String	Optional. The card holder's phone number
`date_of_birth`	String	Required. The date of birth of the card holder
`address`	Object	Required.
`address.street`	String	Required. The street address of the card holder
`address.city`	String	Required. The city address of the card holder
`address.state`	String	Required. The state address of the card holder
`address.country`	String	Required. The country address of the card holder
`address.zip_code`	String	Required. The zip code of the card holder's address
`country_identity`	Object	Required.
`country_identity.type`	String	Required. This specifies the type of identification that applies to the card holder's country. The available type is `bvn`
`country_identity.number`	String	Required. This specifies the unique identity number for the card holder's `country_identity.type`.
`country_identity.country`	String	Required. This specifies the country of the card holder.
`identity`	Object	Required.
`identity.type`	String	Required. The type of identity document submitted by the card holder. Options include `nin`, `voters_card`, `drivers_license`, `passport`.
`identity.number`	String	Required. The identity document number of the card holder.
`identity.image`	String - Base64	Required. The identity document image
`identity.country`	String	Required. (ISO3166 alpha-2, e.g `NG` for Nigeria) The country as specified on the identity document.

This is what a typical response would look like:

{
  "first_name": "Onyx",
  "last_name": "Sanders",
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "phone_number": "+2348030537445",
  "date_of_birth": "2002-11-11",
  "country_identity": {
    "type": "bvn",
    "number": "22345678356",
    "country": "NG"
  },
  "address": {
    "street": "No 14, Kora street",
    "city": "Lekki",
    "state": "Lagos",
    "country": "NG",
    "zip_code": "101234"
  },
  "identity": {
    "type": "nin",
    "number": "53748374688",
    "image": "/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEASABIAAD/4gHYSUNDX1BST0ZJTEUAAQEAAAHIAAAAAAQwAABtb",
    "country": "NG"
   }
}

Create a virtual card (via API)

Once you have created a card holder, you will be able to issue virtual cards for that card holder. These virtual cards must be associated with a Visa or MasterCard scheme. You can choose the card scheme you want for a virtual card upon creation. However, if no scheme is selected, the MasterCard scheme will be assigned to the card by default.

💡
Always ensure that you have sufficient funds in your issuing balance for card creation.

Use this request to create cards:

{{baseurl}}/api/v1/cards

The request body should have the following parameters:

Field	Data Type	Description
`currency`	String	Required. This is the currency under which the card is created. (`USD`)
`amount`	Number	Required.
`card_holder_reference`	String	Required. This is the unique reference of the cardholder.
`reference`	String	Required. This is your unique reference for the card.
`type`	String	Required. This is the type of card to be created. Can be `physical` or `virtual`. However, only virtual cards can be issued for now.
`brand`	String	Required. This is the card brand or scheme - `mastercard` or `visa`.

With a successful request, this is an example of what the card creation response would look like:

{
  "status": true,
  "message": "Card creation pending",
  "data": {
    "reference": "226eeb6f-f6cb-562f-a5e8-4uhsdechhgtywhg",
    "currency": "USD",
    "type": "virtual",
    "holder_name": "Onyx Sanders",
    "status": "pending"
  }
}

A webhook notification will also be sent to your application immediately the virtual card is created. The webhook notification request will look like this:

{
  "event": "issuing.card_creation.success",
  "data": {
    "reference": "webhook unique reference",
    "card_reference": "876eeb6f-f6cb-562f-a5e8-48d91dec7999",
    "type": "virtual",
    "currency": "USD",
    "holder_name": "John Doe",
    "brand": "visa",
    "expiry_month": "09",
    "expiry_year": "25",
    "first_six": "111111",
    "last_four": "6777",
    "status": "active",
    "date": "2000-11-11T10:00:00"
  }
}

Virtual card details

Once you have successfully created a virtual card, you can retrieve the details of the card.

The request to get the details of a virtual card is:

{{baseurl}}/api/v1/cards/:reference

And the response would look like this:

{
  "status": true,
  "message": "Card details retrieved successfully",
  "data": {
    "reference": "Card-Ref-0000-0011",
    "type": "virtual",
    "first_six": "111111",
    "last_four": "6714",
    "pan": "1111115476876714",
    "cvv": "123",
    "brand": "visa",
    "expiry_month": "04",
    "expiry_year": "2023",
    "currency": "USD",
    "balance": 0,
    "status": "active",
    "billing": {
      "city": "Dr Doe City",
      "state": "LA",
      "country": "NG",
      "address1": "No 78, doe street",
      "address2": "doe boulevard",
      "zip_code": "102408"
    },
    "card_holder": {
      "first_name": "John",
      "last_name": "Doe",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "phone_number": "2348012345678",
      "address": {
        "city": "Lekki",
        "state": "Lagos",
        "street": "No 14, Doe street",
        "country": "NG",
        "zip_code": "101234"
      }
    },
    "date_created": "2023-04-06T15:33:54.000Z"
    }
}

Fetching all cards

You can retrieve all the virtual cards you have created by making a GET request to the following endpoint via API:

{{baseurl}}/api/v1/cards

The API also accepts request parameters. For instance, {{baseurl}}/api/v1/cards?status=active retrieves all active cards that you have created.

Parameter	Type	Required?	Description
`status`	String	false	This is the status of the card. It can be any one of `active`, `terminated`, `pending`, `deactivated`, or `expired`.
`type`	String	false	This is the type of cards - `virtual` or `physical`. At the moment, only virtual cards are available.
`start_date`	String	false	This is the specific date from which you would like the query to start. The expected date format is YYYY-MM-DD.
`end_date`	String	false	This is the specific end date for the search query. The expected date format is YYYY-MM-DD.

See below an example of a response for this request:

{
  "status": true,
  "message": "Cards retrieved successfully",
  "data": {
    "data": [
      {
        "reference": "cd-rf—John-doe",
        "type": "virtual",
        "currency": "USD",
        "first_six": "111111",
        "last_four": "6714",
        "status": "active",
        "holder_name": "John Doe",
        "brand": "visa",
        "expiry_month": "04",
        "expiry_year": "2023",
        "date_created": "2023-04-06T15:33:54.000Z"
      },
    ],
    "paging": {
      "total_items": 1,
      "page_size": 10,
      "current": 1,
      "count": 1
    }
  }
}

You can view and manage all the virtual cards you have created from your Kora dashboard. Additionally, you can see the details of a specific card.

To view all the cards you have created, go to the Issuing page and navigate to the Issued Cards tab. Clicking on a card will display its details.

On the card details page, you can view the card transactions, balance, and events.