Hub accounts
Hub accounts overview
Hub accounts are FSCS protected bank accounts held with ClearBank that enable innovative financial products. Use cases for hub accounts typically involve making payments to and from a defined set of accounts.
To ensure regulatory compliance, hub accounts may be subject to one or more of the following constraints:
- Payments may only be made for specific purposes.
- Payments may only be made to and from designated bank accounts.
- Payment frequency may be restricted.
Exact details will be agreed with your institution directly.
Hub accounts are available by prior agreement with ClearBank; if you're interested in using these, please speak with your Client Director.
Creating hub accounts
Hub accounts can be created using the POST /accounts/sterling/v1/hub-accounts endpoint. Before creating a hub account, you'll need the following information:
- The account-holding customer's details.
- Your sort code, provided to you by ClearBank.
- A
productId, also provided to you by ClearBank. - Optionally, if your hub accounts are interest bearing, an
interestConfigurationId.
Account holding customer
Each hub account must be held by a retail customer or business customer. The holder of a hub account is entitled to its funds. Refer to our retail customers page, or contact your Client Director for guidance on creating business customers.
Once you've created a retail or business customer, take note of their customerId and legal name - you'll need these to associate the customer with their new hub account.
Sort code
A sort code will have been assigned to you as part of your onboarding process.
Product identity
The productId you should use will be provided to you as part of onboarding. This ID determines how your hub account behaves.
Interest configuration (optional)
Hub accounts may be interest bearing. This will have been agreed between your institution and ClearBank. If your hub accounts are interest bearing, you can set up their interest configuration profile. Once created, the profile's interestConfigurationId may be reused across subsequent hub accounts to refer to the same configuration profile.
Funding a hub account
A hub account can be funded and defunded via a nominated account that you assign, or via certain designated accounts.
Nominated accounts do not have to be provided by ClearBank: they can be from another external provider. However, the nominated account must be owned by the same account holder as the hub account.
To set or replace the nominated account for a hub account, you can use the PUT /v1/accounts/{accountId}/nominated-account endpoint.
You can make payments from a hub account to its nominated account via Faster Payments. To receive updates about transactions for a hub account, you can subscribe to the Transaction Settled webhook.
If your hub accounts are configured to accrue interest, you can subscribe to the Interest Paid webhook to be notified when interest is paid into the account.
Retrieve and update hub account information
You can retrieve information on all hub accounts by using the GET /v3/accounts endpoint and filtering for hub accounts.
To retrieve information about a specific hub account, you can use the GET /v3/Accounts/{accountId} endpoint.
To make any updates to an existing hub account, you can use the PATCH /v1/accounts/{accountId} endpoint.
You can use the endpoint below to update the details of a hub account.
Hub account closure
Before attempting to close a hub account, you should ensure you are subscribed to both the Account Closure Completed and Account Closure Failed webhooks.
To close a hub account, follow these steps:
- Withdraw all funds from the account.
- Use the POST /v1/accounts/{id}/closure endpoint to request closure.
Note: If the hub account is interest bearing, it must have a nominated account before it can be closed. If there is no interest to be paid, then you can close the account without defining a nominated account.
- OPTIONAL You can check the closure status of a hub account using the GET /v1/accounts/{id}/closure endpoint.
- You'll receive an Account Closure Completed webhook once the account has closed.
Account closure may fail due to the nominated account details being incorrect. If this happens, you'll be notified via the ClosureFailureReason field in the Account Closure Failed webhook.
If account closure fails and isn't resolved before the end of the month, then any accrued interest will be paid into the account. You'll need to fully withdraw these funds from the account again before reattempting closure.
You can receive the following combinations of accountStatus and closureStatus from the GET /v1/accounts/{accountId}/closure endpoint:
| accountStatus | closureStatus | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enabled | None | No closure request submitted |
| Enabled | Pending | Closure requested, interest being calculated |
| Enabled | Failed | Closure request failed, see closureFailureReasons field for details |
| Suspended | Pending | Closure requested for suspended account, interest being calculated |
| Closed | Complete | Closure completed successfully |