This guide walks through how to use the Partner API to onboard non-business customers (if you are trying to onboard business customers onto your application, please read "Onboarding Businesses" instead).

As a regulated financial institution, Jiko is required to perform Customer Identification Program (CIP), Know Your Customer (KYC), and Know Your Business (KYB) checks on all applicants. Therefore, customers cannot be created directly using the Partner API — they are created automatically when an application is approved. The application process described below collects the information needed for these checks and is the only way to create customers in the system.

The individual onboarding system is based on Applications, which spawn a Customer once approved. An Application must contain sensitive user data that undergoes KYC (Know Your Customer) verification.

Three prerequisites must be fulfilled before creating an application (see Partner Obligations):

1. Verify ownership of the phone number used in the application (e.g. via confirmation code).
2. Verify ownership of the email address used in the application (e.g. via confirmation code).
3. Display agreements provided by Jiko to the user, note the version number, and get time-stamped consent. The version and timestamp must be attached to the application. Re-fetch agreements for every new application to ensure the latest version is presented.

Initiate the onboarding process for a new individual customer by creating an Application. The application captures all required personal information — including name, date of birth, address, identification number, investment profile, and agreement consent — in a single request. Unlike business applications, all required fields must be provided at creation time.

Partner systems:

1. Complete the prerequisites above (phone/email verification, agreement consent).
2. Collect the individual's personal information (name, email, phone number, date of birth, identification number such as SSN, address, investment profile).
3. Call Jiko's create application endpoint with the complete set of information.
4. Receive the created application with its Jiko id and status: "CREATED".
5. Store the application id in internal systems for subsequent tracking.

Submit a completed Individual Application for KYC review. Once the application has been created with all required information, it is submitted for identity verification. Upon approval, a Customer is created with an account and a portal with routing and account numbers, ready to receive external ACH fund transfers.

After submission, the application may require identity verification documents. When status transitions to "DOCUMENTS_NEEDED", the response flags indicate which documents must be uploaded.

Partner systems:

1. Call Jiko's apply endpoint to submit the application for KYC review.
2. Once successfully submitted, the application status transitions to "SUBMITTED".
3. Poll the application periodically or subscribe to webhooks (e.g. application.approved, application.documents_needed) to track review progress.
4. If status is "DOCUMENTS_NEEDED", upload the required documents based on the verification flags (see below), then apply again once the status moves to "PENDING".
5. When status is "APPROVED", use the customer_id from the application to proceed with account setup.

When an application reaches the DOCUMENTS_NEEDED status, you must upload identity verification documents. Which documents to upload is determined by the boolean flags in the application response:

• id_verification_documents_needed: Please upload:

  • a SELFIE, and

  • one of the following:

    • both ID_FRONT and ID_BACK, or

    • a PASSPORT

• identification_number_verification_document_needed: Upload IDENTIFICATION_NUMBER_VERIFICATION (e.g., SSN card, W-2, tax return).

• address_verification_document_needed: Upload ADDRESS_VERIFICATION (e.g., recent utility bill, bank statement, lease agreement).

Partners implementing their own onboarding UX are required to perform proof of ownership — such as verifying government ID and a live photo match through a trusted vendor — to ensure the individual is the rightful owner of the submitted information (see Partner Obligations).

Once all flags have been cleared, the application status automatically transitions to PENDING. Call the Apply endpoint again to re-submit for evaluation.

The sandbox environment lets you test all application statuses without going through real KYC review. The first digit(s) of the identification_number (e.g. SSN) control which status the application transitions to after calling Apply:

For identification numbers starting with 2, the third digit controls the transition after uploading documents and re-applying:

• Starts with 2*1: Transitions to MANUAL_REVIEW
• Otherwise: Transitions to APPROVED

Retrieve the current state of an Individual Application at any point during the onboarding process. This supports tracking application progress, verifying submitted information, checking document request statuses, and determining when an application has been approved and a Customer has been created.

Partner systems:

1. Call Jiko's get application endpoint with the application id.
2. Review the status field to determine the current stage of the application.
3. If status is "APPROVED", extract the customer_id to proceed with account operations.
4. If status is "DOCUMENTS_NEEDED", review the documents array and upload any documents with status: "PENDING_UPLOAD".
5. Propagate the application state to internal systems for tracking and reporting.