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Melio models both sides of a payment as accounts. An internal account is a funding source owned by the entity - the money comes out of it. An external account is a payee’s delivery method - the money goes into it. Every payment links exactly one internal account to one external account.

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Ownership types

The ownershipType field indicates which side of the payment the account belongs to:
  • internal - funding sources owned by the entity. Can be an ACH bank account or a card.
  • external - delivery methods for payees. Can be ACH, paper check, domestic wire, or virtual card.

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Account types

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Bank account verification

The isVerified field reflects whether Melio has confirmed the entity controls the account. It is present only on internal accounts; for external accounts (payees, ownershipType: external) verification does not apply and the field is absent. An internal account is added either through Plaid or, for selected partners only, by supplying the account and routing numbers directly. An internal ACH account starts as isVerified: false and must be verified before you can originate a payment from it. Verification is a Plaid-hosted micro-deposit flow:
  1. Call POST /accounts/{accountId}/verify/link to get a short-lived, Melio-hosted link.
  2. Hand the link to the entity. It opens a Melio-hosted page where they complete same-day micro-deposit verification in Plaid.
  3. When verification completes, isVerified flips to true. Subscribe to api.account.updated to learn when this happens.
Until isVerified is true, payments cannot be originated from the account.

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Card accounts

Internal card accounts are added through a tokenized card flow rather than the micro-deposit flow used for bank accounts. The card is captured as a vault token along with its BIN, expiry, cardholder name, and billing address, so the raw card number never passes through your servers. A card account is added in one of two ways, both of which feed the same tokenized flow:
  • Hosted card flow - mint a link with POST /accounts/link (type: card). The entity completes card entry on a Melio-hosted page that adds the internal account for them.
  • Direct - approved partners may submit the vaulted card token and its details to POST /accounts themselves.

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Account ID

Every account receives an opaque identifier starting with acct_ (for example, acct_7nRv3xBqY5tM). Pass this ID as originatingAccountId (internal) or receivingAccountId (external) when you create a payment. Set externalId if you want to attach your own reference - for example, your internal ledger ID for the bank account. You can filter account list endpoints by externalId to look up accounts without storing Melio IDs. For Plaid-linked bank accounts and card accounts, you cannot collect credentials directly - those flows require a hosted portal. Use POST /accounts/link to generate a short-lived, entity-scoped URL:
Redirect or embed the returned linkUrl for the entity’s user. When they complete the flow, Melio creates the account automatically and the URL expires. You can poll GET /accounts or listen for the account.created webhook to detect when the account is ready.