Create and Manage Payment Counterparties

Learn how to create, search, and manage counterparties for wire payments, including onboarding them to additional bank partners.

A counterparty in Diameter represents the recipient of a wire payment — the external bank account that will receive funds when your end user sends a transfer. Each counterparty is associated with a specific end user and a partner bank, and stores the routing details needed to execute the wire. Pre-creating counterparties before initiating payments lets Diameter run compliance checks in advance, reducing delays at the moment of transfer.

Create counterparties ahead of time during user onboarding, not immediately before a payment. This gives Diameter time to screen the recipient and avoids compliance-related delays during time-sensitive transactions.

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Using inline counterparties

If you prefer not to pre-create a counterparty record, you can pass the full creditor details directly inside the payment request body instead of a creditorId. This is useful for one-off payments to recipients you don’t need to store.

Inline counterparties skip the advance compliance pre-screening that a pre-created counterparty goes through. This can delay the payment if the recipient triggers a manual review. For recurring payments to the same recipient, always pre-create the counterparty.