FBO accounts

An FBO account is an account you open for one of your customers. It sits in a program that Augustus holds for the benefit of your customers, it has its own balance and its own account number, and it sends and receives payments in that customer’s name. FBO stands for “for benefit of”: the program is titled Augustus for the benefit of Acme Inc’s customers, and Augustus sets that title when it configures the program. Each account holds its own balance in the ledger. Augustus reports that balance per customer and the total per program.

How it is built

Object	In this product
Account program	Configured by Augustus and titled for the benefit of your customers. The program has a readable total balance. One currency per program; a setup spanning several currencies uses several programs.
Account holder	One per customer. You register each holder through the API with the identity data for its type.
Account	One per customer, opened by you through the API once the holder is registered. You can freeze, unfreeze and close it.
Address	One per account, in the customer’s name: a US routing and account number reachable over ACH, Fedwire and SWIFT.

The objects are explained under Account structure.

Status

Accounts use the model shared by every Augustus account: pending, active, frozen, closed. See Account status. If you have permission to manage the accounts in a program, you can freeze, unfreeze and close them through the API. That is the case for your FBO program; operating accounts are managed by Augustus. A new account opens in pending and is activated by Augustus once verification clears, usually within minutes. If additional information is required (enhanced due diligence, a sanctions hit, or an identity mismatch), the account stays pending and Augustus contacts you with next steps.

Money in

Each account has its own account number, so funds arriving over US rails settle into the right account without any routing on your side.

Rail	Speed	Use case
ACH	Same-day settlement windows	Low-cost retail flows
Fedwire	Minutes during operating hours	High-value or time-critical payments
SWIFT (USD)	Depends on the sender’s correspondent chain	International USD inbound to your customers
Internal (`rail: "internal"`)	Seconds	Payments from another Augustus account, including your own operating account and other accounts in your program

When a credit arrives, Augustus matches the destination account number to the account, performs sanctions and AML screening, credits the account’s balance and fires deposit.settled. If a credit cannot be matched (wrong account number, sanctions hit, frozen account), Augustus returns it over the originating rail and notifies you with the reason. See Deposits.

Money out

You initiate payouts from the customer’s account: pass its ID as account_id. The customer’s name appears as the originator on the rail, which is payment on behalf of (PoBo). Funds are debited from the account when the payout is initiated. The request and response shapes are the same as for any other payout. When the counterparty’s address belongs to an Augustus account, the payout settles on Augustus’s books instead of going out on a rail. It reaches sent within seconds, the receiving account gets a deposit.settled event, and both records carry rail: "internal". Statuses and webhooks are the same as for any other payout, and no configuration is needed.

Integration

Account, account holder and account program endpoints sit under /v1/accounts, /v1/account_holders and /v1/account_programs. They follow the same auth, error, and pagination conventions as the rest of the 2026-05-01 API.

Sandbox. Create a test program with POST /v1/simulations/account_programs, then run the steps below against it. The Simulations walkthrough covers the full flow including deposits and payouts.

Pass the program ID, the holder type and the identity data for that type. The fields per type are listed under Account structure.

curl -X POST "https://api.sandbox.augustus.com/v1/account_holders" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUGUSTUS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "account_program_id": "a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028",
    "holder_type": "natural_person",
    "beneficiary_data": {
      "legal_name": "Jane Doe",
      "date_of_birth": "1990-04-12",
      "country_of_citizenship": "US",
      "identification": { "type": "ssn", "value": "123-45-6789" },
      "residential_address": {
        "line_1": "123 Market St",
        "line_2": null,
        "city": "San Francisco",
        "state": "CA",
        "postal_code": "94105",
        "country_code": "US"
      }
    }
  }'

import Augustus from '@augustusbank/typescript-sdk'

const client = new Augustus()
const holder = await client.accountHolders.create({
  account_program_id: 'a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028',
  holder_type: 'natural_person',
  beneficiary_data: {
    legal_name: 'Jane Doe',
    date_of_birth: '1990-04-12',
    country_of_citizenship: 'US',
    identification: { type: 'ssn', value: '123-45-6789' },
    residential_address: {
      line_1: '123 Market St',
      line_2: null,
      city: 'San Francisco',
      state: 'CA',
      postal_code: '94105',
      country_code: 'US',
    },
  },
})

The holder is screened asynchronously and starts in pending. Subscribe to account_holder.active to know when it clears.

holder_type accepts natural_person or business. individual is not a valid value. Open at most one account per customer under each program.

POST /v1/account_holders in the API Reference →

Create the account

curl -X POST "https://api.sandbox.augustus.com/v1/accounts" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUGUSTUS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "account_program_id": "a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028",
    "account_holder_id": "6aa40a7ff035bf741bc7c96a"
  }'

const account = await client.accounts.create({
  account_program_id: 'a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028',
  account_holder_id: holder.id,
})

{
  "id": "2a2c384c-4f31-4406-980d-92afa1cd124e",
  "type": "account",
  "currency": "USD",
  "status": "pending",
  "asset_type": "fiat",
  "label": "Jane Doe",
  "financial_addresses": [
    {
      "type": "aba",
      "routing_number": "021000021",
      "account_number": "43920932",
      "account_holder_name": "Jane Doe"
    }
  ],
  "created_at": "2026-09-11T14:48:39.182Z",
  "updated_at": "2026-09-11T14:48:39.182Z",
  "metadata": {}
}

The response does not repeat account_program_id or account_holder_id. Store the account ID against your customer record; to list a program’s accounts later, filter by account_program_id.POST /v1/accounts in the API Reference →

Give the customer their payment details

The routing and account number under financial_addresses, together with the customer’s name, are what a sender needs to pay in over ACH or Fedwire. For SWIFT, add Augustus’s BIC; see Receive USD internationally.

List the accounts in the program

curl "https://api.sandbox.augustus.com/v1/accounts?account_program_id=a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUGUSTUS_API_KEY"

for await (const account of client.accounts.list({
  account_program_id: 'a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028',
})) {
  // process account
}

Without the filter, the list returns every account you can see, including your own operating accounts.GET /v1/accounts in the API Reference →

Read balances

Each account has its own balance. The program balance is the sum across every account in the program.

curl "https://api.sandbox.augustus.com/v1/accounts/2a2c384c-4f31-4406-980d-92afa1cd124e/balance" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUGUSTUS_API_KEY"

curl "https://api.sandbox.augustus.com/v1/account_programs/a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028/balance" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUGUSTUS_API_KEY"

const accountBalance = await client.accounts.retrieveBalance('2a2c384c-4f31-4406-980d-92afa1cd124e')
const programBalance = await client.accountPrograms.retrieveBalance('a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028')

Program balance

{
  "id": "a55d55bd-c8c4-44f4-b86f-a3af26ba7028",
  "type": "account_program_balance",
  "amount": {
    "available": "1001089.36",
    "pending": "0.00"
  },
  "currency": "USD",
  "as_of": "2026-09-18T12:27:38.416Z"
}

Note the two shapes: the account balance keys on account_id, the program balance on id.GET /v1/account_programs/{id}/balance in the API Reference →

Basics

Accounts

Transactions

Payments

Conversions

Loans

Pay by Bank

How it is built

Status

Money in

Money out

Integration

​How it is built

​Status

​Money in

​Money out

​Integration

How it is built

Status

Money in

Money out

Integration