Onboarding & Liability Discovery

This guide covers the onboarding layer of a PFM integration: how users get verified, how their liabilities are discovered, how to detect new liabilities over time, and how to enrich auto loan accounts with vehicle details. If you haven’t completed the Getting Started steps (creating and verifying Sarah Chen’s Entity, and running Connect), start there first.

Identity Verification with Opal

Opal is Method’s pre-built, white-labeled UI component that handles the entire verification flow — phone verification and identity verification — in a single drop-in experience. It’s the fastest path to getting users verified and is recommended for most integrations.

Opal (Recommended)
BYO Identity Verification

Opal handles phone verification (SMS or SNA) and identity verification (KBA) in a single embedded flow. Your user completes the process in your app, and you receive a webhook when verification is complete.Advantages:

Minimal frontend development
Tested, optimized UX for conversion
Handles edge cases (retries, fallbacks, error states)
White-labeled to match your brand

Opal Integration Guide

Full guide for embedding Opal in your application.

Liability Discovery via Connect

Once Sarah is verified, Connect performs a soft-pull credit report to discover her liabilities. The Getting Started guide showed the Connect call that discovered all 6 of her accounts. Here’s what Connect found for Sarah:

Account ID	Creditor	Type	What Your App Shows
`acc_eKKmrXDpJBKgw`	Chase Sapphire Reserve	Credit Card	Card balance, APR, due date
`acc_GV8WbmJW7KGRy`	Citi Double Cash	Credit Card	Card balance, APR, due date
`acc_MLPKh9gQDDbT8`	Capital One	Auto Loan	Loan balance, payment schedule
`acc_LbXE8wVYJLrKt`	Navient	Student Loan	Loan balance, disbursements
`acc_J3P9fayDFjpAy`	SoFi	Personal Loan	Balance, term, rate
`acc_eFFRV9zmpLREK`	Wells Fargo	Mortgage	Balance, rate, payoff date

Connect discovers both open and closed liabilities on the first call. Subsequent Connect calls for the same Entity only return newly opened accounts.

Connect Subscriptions

A user’s liability picture changes over time — they open new credit cards, take out loans, or consolidate debt. Connect subscriptions automatically re-run discovery on a recurring basis and notify you via webhook when new accounts are found. Enroll the Entity in a connect subscription:

curl https://production.methodfi.com/entities/ent_au22b1fbFJbp8/subscriptions \
  -X POST \
  -H "Method-Version: 2025-12-01" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_WyZEWVfTcH7GqmPzUPk65Vjc" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "enroll": "connect"
  }'

{
  "id": "sub_Wm3FJkqV8hpDR",
  "name": "connect",
  "status": "active",
  "payload": null,
  "latest_request_id": null,
  "created_at": "2025-09-15T15:00:00.000Z",
  "updated_at": "2025-09-15T15:00:00.000Z"
}

When Method detects a new liability for Sarah, you’ll receive a webhook event with the new Connect result containing the newly discovered account IDs. Your app can then automatically add these to her dashboard without any user action.

Vehicle Enrichment

For auto loan accounts like Sarah’s Capital One loan (acc_MLPKh9gQDDbT8), Method can retrieve the associated vehicle details — VIN, year, make, model, and style. This transforms a generic “Auto Loan: $18,450 balance” into “2021 Honda CR-V EX: $18,450 remaining.” Request vehicle data for Sarah’s Entity:

curl https://production.methodfi.com/entities/ent_au22b1fbFJbp8/vehicles \
  -X POST \
  -H "Method-Version: 2025-12-01" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_WyZEWVfTcH7GqmPzUPk65Vjc"

{
  "id": "evhl_QnT4mKxBfVpJ8",
  "entity_id": "ent_au22b1fbFJbp8",
  "vehicles": [
    {
      "vin": "7FARW2H83ME012345",
      "year": "2021",
      "make": "honda",
      "model": "cr-v",
      "series": null,
      "major_color": "blue",
      "style": "sport_utility_vehicle"
    }
  ],
  "status": "completed",
  "error": null,
  "created_at": "2025-09-15T15:05:00.000Z",
  "updated_at": "2025-09-15T15:05:00.000Z"
}

With vehicle data, your PFM app can display rich auto loan details, enable equity calculations (comparing vehicle value against remaining balance), and power features like insurance comparison or refinancing recommendations.

Vehicles API Reference

Full API documentation for the Vehicles endpoint.

What’s Next

Dashboard & Insights

Pull real-time balances, credit scores, card brand art, and financial health attributes.

Transactions & Payments

Stream credit card transactions and initiate bill payments.

Getting Started

Entities

Identity Verification

Connect

Accounts

Updates

Payments

Additional Products

Use Cases: Commerce

Use Cases: Lending

Use Cases: PFM

Onboarding & Liability Discovery

Identity Verification with Opal

Opal Integration Guide

Identity Verification Methods

Liability Discovery via Connect

Connect Subscriptions

Vehicle Enrichment

Vehicles API Reference

What’s Next

Dashboard & Insights

Transactions & Payments

​Identity Verification with Opal

Opal Integration Guide

Identity Verification Methods

​Liability Discovery via Connect

​Connect Subscriptions

​Vehicle Enrichment

Vehicles API Reference

​What’s Next

Dashboard & Insights

Transactions & Payments

Identity Verification with Opal

Liability Discovery via Connect

Connect Subscriptions

Vehicle Enrichment

What’s Next