title: Getting Started with Lend
This section explains how to get started with a Lend product implementation. This section assumes you have already gone through the Quick Start Guide.
Follow this guide to understand:
- Common prerequisites for using Lend products
- How to generate Lend reports
- How to get Lend reports
- Testing and integration options
1. Set Up Authentication and Create a Test Customer
Follow the Quick Start Guide to generate Sandbox credentials, create a test customer, and make sure you can retrieve customer data.
2. Create a Consumer and/or Business
Most Lend products are created within Federal Credit Reporting Agency (FCRA) protections and regulations. To generate and view CRA reports, a consumer record is required.
Unlike a customer record, a consumer record cannot be deleted. A copy of the report created for a consumer will be available for 6 years. Unless stated otherwise, all Lend products require a consumer record, including for some small business use cases. There is a one-to-one relationship between a customer record and a consumer record.
A business record may be required in addition to or in place of a consumer record. Certain products, such as Transaction CRA, were not originally created for small business use and do not support the business record. In some instances, it is appropriate to use business data when creating the consumer record.
For a step-by-step guide on how to create a consumer or business record see here:
[!NOTE]
When creating a consumer record, end user information must be provided by partners that are resellers. This is due to FCRA regulatory requirements.
3. Connect Data
The next step is to have the customer grant permission to connect their data.
This is done through the Mastercard Data Connect application. Data Connect supports linking bank accounts, payroll accounts, and uploading paystubs depending on the Data Connect experience used. See the Data Connect documentation to learn more about the Data Connect experiences and how you can use them.
Data Connect Full experiences are commonly used for Lend products. Below is a list of Data Connect Full experiences. The Financial Institution (FI) certification and other settings are configured for best results for the report type(s) mentioned. Contact your Mastercard Account Manager for help configuring your Data Connect experience.
| Data Connect Product Type | Report(s) Generated | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions CRA | Transaction CRA | Bank account connection experience. |
| VOI | VOI | Bank account connection experience. |
| VOA | VOA | VOA standalone, regular bank account connection experience. |
| VOA History | VOAI – Transactions | VOAI standalone, regular bank account connection experience. |
| VOE Transactions | VOE – Transactions | VOE – Transactions standalone, regular bank account connection experience. This product is most often used as a refresh of a VOAI or VOA report and not a standalone experience. |
| VOIE Payroll | VOIE – Payroll | Payroll connection standalone experience. |
| VOE Payroll | VOE – Payroll | Payroll connection standalone experience. This product is most often used as a direct refresh of a VOIE – Payroll report and not a new consumer experience. |
| Cash Flow Analytics Business CRA, Cash Flow Analytics Business Federal Trade Commissioning, Cash Flow Analytics Non-CRA, Cash Flow Analytics Personal CRA, Cash Flow Analytics Personal Non-CRA | Cash Flow Analytics | Bank account connection experience. |
| Balance Analytics Business CRA, Balance Analytics Business Federal Trade Commissioning, Balance Analytics Business Non-CRA, Balance Analytics Personal CRA, Balance Analytics Personal Non-CRA | Balance Analytics | Bank account connection experience. |
| Payment History Business CRA, Payment History Business Federal Trade Commissioning, Payment History Business Non-CRA | Payment History | |
| VOIE Paystub Tx Verify | VOIE – Paystub (with TXVerify) | VOIE – Paystub (with TXVerify) experience. The customer is prompted to connect to their direct deposit account(s) and upload their most recent paystub. |
| VOIE Paystub | VOIE with Statement (no TXVerify) | Paystub standalone experience. The customer is prompted to upload their most recent paystub. |
| Pre Qual VOA | AssetReady | One-time request to generate an AssetReady report. The report includes account balances, consolidated balance across all accounts, 2-month and 6-month average balances, account owner names and address, and a count of NSF events over the last 6 months. This report provides FCRA complaint CRA coverage. This report includes all accounts for a single customer. |
| MVS IE | VOIE – Payroll and VOIE – Paystub (with TXVerify) | MVS – Income and Employment waterfall experience to collect all information necessary for income and employment verification in one step. The customer connects their payroll data and is then asked if they have additional employment records to add. If so, they are prompted to connect their direct deposit account(s) and upload their most recent paystub. Generates VOIE – Payroll (if data found) and VOIE – Paystub (with TXVerify) (if required). |
| MVS IE Basic | VOIE – Payroll and VOAI | MVS – Income and Employment Basic waterfall experience to collect all information necessary for income and employment validation in one step, without paystub data. The customer connects their payroll data and is then asked if they have additional employment records to add. If so, they are prompted to connect their direct deposit account(s). Generates VOIE – Payroll (if data found) and VOAI (if required). |
| MVS Basic | VOIE – Payroll and VOAI – Transactions | MVS – Basic Asset, Income and Employment waterfall experience to collect all data for asset, income and employment verification through payroll and transaction data. The customer is prompted to connect their bank accounts and payroll data. Generates VOIE – Payroll (if data found) and VOAI – Transactions. |
| MVS Basic Paystub | VOIE – Paystub (with TXVerify) and VOAI – Transactions | MVS – Basic Paystub experience. The customer is prompted to connect their bank account(s) and upload their most recent paystub. |
| MVS Full | VOIE – Payroll, VOAI, and VOIE – Paystub (with TXVerify) | MVS – Full waterfall experience to collect all information necessary for assets, income and employment verification in one step. Also known as “MVS-1-Touch”. First, the customer is prompted to connect their bank accounts and payroll data. The customer is then asked if they have additional employment records to add and if so, they are prompted to upload their most recent paystub. Generates VOIE – Payroll (if data found), VOAI, and VOIE – Paystub (with TXVerify) (if required). |
[!TIP]
If a product is not on the list above, you can use the basic Aggregation Data Connect experience type to have the customer connect bank accounts, then you can directly generate the report yourself via the API.
To enable Data Connect, either embed a Data Connect URL into your experience, or send a Data Connect email to the customer. For best results, in the on-ramp to Data Connect, prepare the customer by letting them know the benefits of digitally connecting their accounts and remind them what account types to connect. Once in Data Connect, the customer is prompted to link their accounts.
If you have a use case where there are multiple customers applying for a loan jointly, you can use our Data Connect Full – Joint Borrower flow. Multiple customer IDs and consumer IDs can be tied together to one Data Connect experience. Bank accounts are connected and linked to the customer/consumer record tied to the customer designated as the “primary” borrower. Payroll accounts are connected individually per borrower.
For more information, see the Data Connect application documentation, and the UX implementation best practices.
4. Generate or Refresh Reports
There are two ways to generate a report:
- Automated report generation at the end of a Data Connect Full session
- Client-initiated API report generation in Data Connect Full or other Data Connect types
For Data Connect Full, the initial report is generated automatically at the end of the session (step 3), although auto-generation can be disabled.
Any report generation request for the same customer after the initial report is considered a refresh and returns updated data. A refresh is executed without re-engaging the customer via a client-initiated API call.
To directly generate or refresh a report, use the report generation endpoint specific to that report – see Reports List.
The response includes the status of the report generation and a report ID which can be used to track the associated report webhooks and to get the report later. Refreshed reports default to the same parameters as the original report, unless specified otherwise.
Once the report is generated, you can move on to Get Reports (step 6).
5. Report Webhooks
Report webhooks are available exclusively to Lend reports. If using Data Connect Full, a report is generated by default and you will get a “generating” webhook notification. Once report generation is finished, you will get a “done” webhook and can move on to Get Reports (step 6). See Report Webhooks for more information.
When generating reports directly, you can set up a webhook listener so that you know immediately when the report is ready to be retrieved – see Report Webhooks.
If you are not using webhook notifications, you can use one of the Get Reports APIs.
6. Get Reports
Each type of report is generated using a different API endpoint, but all reports can be fetched once they are ready using the same Get Report endpoints. You need the ID of the report that was returned when you generated the report. Most reports can be retrieved in JSON or PDF formats.
We recommend using the Get Report by Consumer and ID API.
See the full list of Get Reports APIs.
7. Test the APIs
Test the APIs by connecting data using our test institutions and test accounts: see Testing the APIs. Ensure the test profile you select contains account types that are supported by the report you will be ordering.
In addition to the basic test profiles such as the personas, there are several Lend-specific test profiles:
8. Product Delivery
There are three ways you can use Lend products:
- Direct API Integration – you can build your own integration to our APIs using this documentation. You can be assigned a Technical Solution Engineer to help you during your implementation project.
- Existing Ecosystem Platform – Lend integrates with many existing lending platforms. Check with your Account Executive to confirm if Lend supports the platform you use. There are basic steps needed to enable our products in these platforms. We also provide training resources and user guides for our largest platform partners. a. MVS Encompass b. MVS Simple Nexus
- Mastercard Order Reports Portal – a portal within the Mastercard Open Finance Client Hub that enables you to order and view reports by sending Data Connect emails to consumers.