Guarantee

Guarantee is an optional feature in Plaid Transfer. With Guarantee, Plaid analyzes proposed transfers and guarantees a subset of them. If a Plaid-guaranteed transfer is returned, Plaid will cover the cost of the ACH return and the funds will never leave your bank account.

Guarantee also enables faster fund availability. Once Plaid guarantees a transfer, the funds will be included in the next sweep, even if the transfer is not yet settled. Additionally, there is no holding period for guaranteed debit transfers.

Guarantee is backwards compatible with existing Transfer integrations – no changes are necessary to use it. Information about transfer guarantees is provided in the response payloads of the /transfer/authorization/create and /transfer/create endpoints.

In order to qualify for a guaranteed transfer, the following fields are required when calling /transfer/authorization/create : user.phone_number (optional if email_address provided), user.email_address (optional if phone_number provided), device.ip_address, device.user_agent, and user_present.

In this guide, we'll explain how Plaid protects you from the uncertainty of ACH returns with guaranteed transactions.

When /transfer/authorization/create is called, Plaid performs a risk assessment on the proposed transfer and determines whether the transfer can be guaranteed. The response will contain information about the guarantee.

1{
2  "authorization": {
3    "id": "c685bd6e-108e-4c61-834a-2548a0ff2176",
4    "created": "2020-08-06T17:27:15Z",
5    "decision": "approved",
6    "decision_rationale": null,
7    "guarantee_decision": "NOT_GUARANTEED",
8    "guarantee_decision_rationale": {
9      "code": "RETURN_BANK",
10      "description": "..."
11    },
12    "proposed_transfer": { ... },
13  },
14  "request_id": "saKrIBuEB9qJZno"
15}

If the transfer is guaranteed, the guarantee_decision decision field in the response will be "GUARANTEED" and the guarantee_decision_rationale field will be null. If the transfer is not guaranteed, the guarantee_decision field will be "NOT_GUARANTEED" and the guarantee_decision_rationale object will include more information about why the transfer could not be guaranteed. This information is also returned in the response payload of /transfer/create when the transfer is created.

Once Plaid receives a transfer creation request that's been guaranteed, the amount of that transfer is then included in the next sweep. At a later time, if that guaranteed transfer is returned, Plaid does not reverse-sweep the fund and the sweep_status of the transfer remains as swept.

For example, you collect a total of $3000 debits from users, of which $500 is guaranteed. On the same day (let’s say before the ACH cutoff window on that day), a $500 sweep is originated. The next day Plaid receives a $100 guaranteed return and a $200 non-guaranteed return. If you have 1 day hold on debits, the net-sum of the sweep on this day would be $2300. In total, you receive $2800. You are only responsible for the $200 return which is not guaranteed.

In the Sandbox environment, all transfer amounts less than or equal to $20 will be guaranteed, while amounts over $20 will not be guaranteed, allowing you to test both guaranteed and non-guaranteed transfers.

1. Create 4 transfers using /transfer/authorization/create and /transfer/create for $5, $10, $20, and $40. All but the $40 transaction will be guaranteed.

2. Simulate a "posted" event for all transfers by calling the /sandbox/transfer/simulate.

3. Simulate a sweep by calling /sandbox/transfer/sweep/simulate. Confirm the $75 sweep amount using /transfer/sweep/list and /transfer/event/list. Inspect each transfer with /transfer/get and confirm that sweep_status is "swept".

4. Simulate a "returned" event for the $10, $20, and $40 transfers by calling /sandbox/transfer/simulate.

5. Simulate a sweep by calling /sandbox/transfer/sweep/simulate. Confirm the sweep amount is -$40. Inspect that only the $40 transfer’s sweep_status is "return_swept". In this scenario, the $10 and $20 transfers were guaranteed and are not deducted. The $5 transfer is not deducted as it was not returned, and the returned $40 transfer is deducted as it was not guaranteed.