Overview - Natural Docs

Direct is in early access. To request Direct access, contact hi@natural.com.

An external party account (epa_*) stores banking details for an External party. It is the destination of Direct ACH and realtime payments. Store one by sending the account details for its type. A US bank account takes the account type plus the account and routing numbers:

{
  "data": {
    "attributes": {
      "externalPartyId": "epty_550e8400e29b41d4a716446655440000",
      "accountDetails": {
        "type": "us_bank_account",
        "accountType": "checking",
        "accountNumber": "123456786789",
        "routingNumber": "121000358"
      }
    }
  }
}

Natural stores the numbers securely. Responses identify the account by its last four digits and a masked form, and never return the full numbers.

Supported rails

The account’s supportedRails field lists the payment rails the account is expected to accept, such as ach and realtime. The list is advisory and refreshed periodically from the payment network — the authoritative check happens when you create a payment.

Validation

Natural validates the account when you create it and reports the outcome in the account’s validation state. An account that cannot be validated immediately is pending and resolves asynchronously to validated or failed — the external_party_account.validated webhook event fires when it validates. ACH credits work while validation is pending.