About Account Name Inquiry

Account Name Inquiry (ANI) is an account verification feature that is supported by both the Mastercard and Visa card networks. This is an anti-fraud feature intended to prevent the delivery of account takeover fraud and authorized push-payment scams to fraudulent recipients. ANI allows originating institutions to verify that the name users are providing during their card registration process matches the name associated with the card on file by the card issuer. ANI works independently of a financial transaction. It is a $0 authorization, non-financial, and inquiry-type request made by merchants when the user is introducing their card account as a form of payment. This request can be conducted on an ad hoc or a periodic basis. At the end of this guide, you should understand:

How ANI matching works, including the requirements to participate in the ANI decision-making process.
How to receive name-matching results via webhook notifications.
How ANI affects transactions using Just-in-Time (JIT) Funding.

How ANI matching works

Marqeta supports the ANI feature to ensure compliance, and it is optional for you to participate in the ANI decisioning process. The ANI feature follows these steps to determine name-matching results:

During ANI, Visa or Mastercard sends an ANI request to Marqeta with the cardholder’s first name, middle name, and/or last name.

Marqeta compares the name from the card network against the cardholder name on file at Marqeta.

Marqeta performs the name match and returns the results to the card network.

The name-matching results consist of Match, Partial Match, or No Match for each name element (first/middle/last), as well as an overall match result for the complete name set.

Participating in the ANI decision-making process

When ANI makes a match determination, the results are included in the account_name_verification object within the transaction message. When configuring a webhook to subscribe to ANI match results, set the type value to transaction.account_name_verification. The account_name_verification object contains the following ANI data:

Name data sent by the merchant in the transaction message.
Name data held by the Marqeta platform.
A standardized response code and memo that describe the ANI match determination.

The following is a sample account_name_verification object as it would appear in a transaction notification sent to your webhook endpoint.

JSON

"account_name_verification": {
  "request": {
    "first_name": "John",
    "middle_name": "A",
    "last_name": "Smith"
    "card_name": "JOHN A SMITH"
  },
  "on_file": {
    "first_name": "John",
    "middle_name": "A",
    "last_name": "Smith"
    "card_name": "JOHN A SMITH"
  },
  "response": {
    "code": "####",
    "memo": "Match"
  }
}

ANI response codes

When you participate in the ANI decision-making process to make a match determination, the results follow a standardized, four-digit response code with a memo that provides more details. The four digits correspond to the cardholder’s name as follows:

Digit Position	Element(s) of Name
First digit	First name
Second digit	Middle name
Third digit	Last name
Fourth digit	Full name

Each digit can include a value of 0, 1, 2, or 3. The values describe the following results:

Value	Description
`0`	Name validation was not performed
`1`	No match
`2`	Partial match
`3`	Full match

The following table lists possible response codes based on the ANI feature:

Code	First Name	Middle Name	Last Name	Full Name
`0000`	Not validated	Not validated	Not validated	Not validated
`1111`	Not matched	Not matched	Not matched	Not matched
`3333`	Exact match	Exact match	Exact match	Exact match
`1232`	Not matched	Partial match	Exact match	Partial match

Overwriting ANI match results

If you fund accounts using the Gateway JIT Funding feature, your system can overwrite the ANI match determination by including updated name data in your JIT ANI response. This is useful if your system’s on-file name data is more up to date than what is held by the Marqeta platform. For more information on overwriting ANI match determinations, see Using ANI with JIT Funding.

​How ANI matching works

​Participating in the ANI decision-making process

​ANI response codes

​Overwriting ANI match results

How ANI matching works

Participating in the ANI decision-making process

ANI response codes

Overwriting ANI match results