Transfer funds to yourself
When the same person or company is on both sides of a transfer, we call that a self-to-self transfer. Some examples of self-to-self transfers include:
- A company transferring funds between accounts at two separate banks
- A contractor moving money from their Moov wallet to their bank account
- A platform adding funds from their bank account to their Moov wallet
In this guide, we’ll be covering the flow for creating a self-to-self transfer. We’ll use an example where you’re building a hypothetical budgeting platform to help users manage their personal finances. The users on your platform are looking to move funds from their checking account at one bank to their savings account at another bank.
Get your access token
To get started, you’ll need to:
- Create a Moov account for your platform
- Get your API keys
- Generate an access token
Set up the account
Create a Moov account for the user who needs to complete a self-to-self transfer. Request the send-funds and transfers capabilities for their Moov account. The capabilities endpoint will specify what information Moov needs about the user before we enable the requested capability.
Add bank accounts
Next, link the user’s checking account and savings account to their Moov account. The user must complete the micro-deposit verification process for both bank accounts before they can be used in a transfer.
Initiate the transfer
Now that you’ve gotten the right capabilities and added both bank accounts, you’re ready to create the transfer.
First, get a list of the available payment methods from the transfer options endpoint. Specify your account ID as both the source and the destination. You will get a list that includes all the payment methods (i.e., ACH, RTP) you can use to move money between the two accounts. When transfering funds out of a linked bank account, you will always use a payment method type ach-debit-fund for that account.
Once you’ve selected the payment methods for the transaction, you can initiate a transfer between the two accounts, using the payment method IDs you got earlier from the transfer options endpoint.
What’s next
Feel free to explore Moov.js, our in-browser JavaScript SDK. Or, if you’re interested in other use cases, you can dive into our guides: