All sponsor banks, program managers, and tech platforms will require you to put money into a reserve account. This is not a Hydrogen requirement, it is directly from the sponsor bank to comply with banking rules. This collateral account will be returned to you if you ever leave Hydrogen, and you can hold this amount on your balance sheet as an asset.
Reserve Account Requirements
Consumer BIN Cards
It is mandatory that you add $1,000 to the reserve account before you can issue debit cards to consumers. You will not be able to go live without completing this step. We hope this $1,000 is never used! It is there for your own protection.
We will monitor your program over time for ACH reversals and fraud. We may request that you add more money to the reserve account at any time, at our sole discretion.
Note: you will need reserve funds in excess of $1,000 if you want to run your own rewards program. For example, if you plan to give out $10,000 in rewards at the end of the month, you will need $11,000 ($1,000 + $10,000) cleared in the reserve account, before the rewards can be pushed to cardholders. The $10,000 will be disbursed, and the $1,000 will remain in the reserve.
Business BIN Cards
Unlike the consumer programs, in a business program, you are using the cards directly. We don't expect to see any fraud in your account! Whatever money you put in the reserve account should be pushed onto the cards to be spent.
Please keep 5-days of projected payments in the reserve account. This is to prevent you from being responsible if there is a dispute with Visa on any large transactions. It also will prevent you from running out of money on the cards. Please remember, it can take 5-days for an ACH to clear in the reserve account. You can only fund cards with cleared money.
Funding the Reserve Account
The process of funding your reserve account at Hydrogen is easy. You will use our integrated ACH feature on the Hydrogen admin portal to push money from your business bank account to the Reserve Account at the sponsor bank.
Please follow the instructions on the Reserve Account funding page to confirm and link your corporate bank account and initiate the transfer. Note: there is a $100,000 limit per ACH transfer. If you need to put more than $100,000 into the Reserve Account, please break up your ACH transfers into multiple tranches.
Learn More
When do I fund the reserve account?
Why was my ACH, or an ACH of my customer, reversed?
Will I be alerted if I need to replenish the reserve account in a consumer reloadable program?
Can I offer consumer reloadable debit cards without funding the reserve account first?
Why do I need to fund the reserve account for the consumer reloadable debit cards?