Send funds via Visa AFTs

Use Visa Automated Funding Transactions (AFTs) to send funds to cards, bank accounts, and digital wallets worldwide.

Visa AFTs (Automated Funding Transactions) allow you to initiate push-to-card and account credit transactions through the Genesis gateway. This functionality is ideal for:

Customer payouts
Peer-to-peer transfers
Payroll disbursements
Refunds and returns
Merchant settlements
Digital wallet top-ups

Each AFT must include the receiver’s account details and a valid identifier type that classifies the purpose of the funding. Visa AFTs are push-only transactions. You cannot use them to charge a customer’s card.

How Visa AFTs work

When you initiate an AFT, Visa requires extra data to validate the destination and purpose of the funds. The key fields include:

identifier_type – describes the nature of the transaction (e.g. peer-to-peer, merchant settlement).
business_application_id – further classifies the funding purpose (e.g. pension disbursement, wallet transfer).
receiver_info – contains the receiver’s account number, country, account type, and optionally name, email, or phone.

Depending on the identifier and receiver type, specific MCCs (Merchant Category Codes) may apply.

Supported identifier types

Use the appropriate identifier based on the transaction scenario and MCC:

Value	Required MCCs
general_person_to_person	4829, 6538, 6540
person_to_person_card_account	4829
own_account	4829, 6051, 6211, 6538, 6540, 7800, 7801, 7802, 7994, 7995, 9406
own_credit_card_bill	4829, 6538
business_disbursement	any
government_or_non_profit_disbursement	any
rapid_merchant_settlement	any
general_business_to_business	any
own_staged_digital_wallet_account	any
own_debit_or_prepaid_card_account	any

Business Application Identifier types

Set the appropriate business_application_id value to define the funding use case:

Value	Description
`funds_disbursement`	General disbursement of funds to a recipient
`pension_disbursement`	Payment of retirement or pension-related funds
`account_to_account`	Transfer between accounts held by the same or different person
`bank_initiated`	Transaction initiated by a bank for its customer
`fund_transfer`	Generic transfer of funds
`person_to_person`	Peer-to-peer payment from one individual to another
`prepaid_card_load`	Funding a prepaid card
`wallet_transfer`	Transfer to or from a digital wallet
`liquid_assets`	Movement of liquid assets for liquidity management

Receiver account types

Your request must specify the type of account the funds are sent to:

Value	Description
`rtn_and_bank_account_number`	Routing Transit Number and Bank Account Number
iban	International Bank Account Number
`card_account`	Card Account
`email`	Electronic Mail
`phone_number`	Phone Number
`bank_account_number_and_bic`	Bank Account Number and Business Identifier Code
`wallet_id`	Wallet ID
`social_network_id`	Unique Identifier for Social Network Application
`other`	Any other type

Example request

Here’s a simplified JSON example for an AFT to a card:

{
  “transaction_type”: “funding”,
  “identifier_type”: “general_person_to_person”,
  “business_application_id”: “funds_disbursement”,
  “receiver_info”: {
    “account_type”: “card_account”,
    “account_number”: “4200000000000000”,
    “country”: “US”,
    “name”: “Jane Doe”
  },
  “amount”: 5000,
  “currency”: “USD”
}

In practice, include authentication, headers, and other standard fields required by the Genesis REST API.

Example response

<funding_transaction_response>
  <status>approved</status>
  <transaction_id>123456789</transaction_id>
  <unique_id>8a8294498b3e6876018b48eaf41d1ca3</unique_id>
  <amount>15000</amount>
  <currency>USD</currency>
  <receiver_info>
    <receiver_name>Jane Smith</receiver_name>
    <receiver_account_type>iban</receiver_account_type>
    <receiver_account_number>DE89370400440532013000</receiver_account_number>
    <receiver_country>DE</receiver_country>
  </receiver_info>
</funding_transaction_response>

Error handling

If Visa rejects the transaction, the API will return an error message and code. Common causes include:

Invalid MCC for selected identifier type
Unsupported account type for receiver
Incomplete or malformed receiver details
You can use standard Genesis error structures (code, message, technical_message) to debug.

For full request and response schemas, authentication instructions, and error codes, refer to the Visa AFT API documentation.

Was this page helpful?