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Glossary

Quick definitions for the terms that show up across the dashboard and the docs.

Audit log
A chronological record of significant actions - payments, customer onboarding, recipient edits, fee changes, operator invites and role changes. Visible to every operator including read-only.
Customer (organization)
An end-client of your fintech that holds a balance and sends or receives money. The dashboard and this wiki use "customer" and "organization" interchangeably; the API uses "organization".
Fintech
You. The Magma customer. Your fintech contains operators (the people who use the dashboard) and customers (the legal entities you transact for).
Idempotency key
A UUID sent in the Idempotency-Key header on payout requests. If a request is replayed (network retry, duplicate click), the upstream provider returns the original result instead of charging twice. See Fiat payouts.
KYC / KYB
Know-Your-Customer (individual) and Know-Your-Business (legal entity). Magma triggers the upstream provider's hosted verification flow for every new customer and tracks the resulting status. Documents are not stored by Magma. See KYC / KYB status.
On-ramp
A pass-through flow where the customer wires USD into a dedicated crypto VA and the upstream provider auto-converts to USDC or USDT and forwards on-chain to a saved wallet. See On-ramp.
Operator
A user inside your fintech with access to the dashboard. Three roles: admin, operate, view. See Roles & permissions.
Pass-through
A payment flow where the customer's USD balance is not affected - funds enter and leave at the rails without ever sitting on the balance. Crypto-to-fiat payouts and on-ramp deposits are both pass-through.
Rail
The settlement network: ACH, Wire, SWIFT, FX, internal transfer, or a crypto chain. Each rail has its own fees and settlement timeline.
Recipient
Where money lands. A bank account scoped to a single customer, picked during the add-recipient wizard. See Recipients overview.
Reference
A human-readable identifier prefixed by transaction type. Payouts are PO-XXXXXXXX. Use this when communicating with support or your customer.
Reserved balance
Funds locked by an in-flight transaction. They count against the customer's wired-in total but are not available for new payouts until the in-flight one settles.
Saved wallet (destination wallet)
A crypto address registered on a customer for use as the destination of an on-ramp deposit. Each saved wallet has exactly one paired crypto VA. One wallet per (network, token) pair per customer. See On-ramp.
Settlement
The point at which money has actually moved at the rail. Wire is 1–3 business days; SWIFT is 3–5; ACH varies. The transaction status moves to completed at settlement.
TOTP
Time-based One-Time Password. The 6-digit code from an authenticator app. Used for both login second factor and payout confirmation.
Virtual account (VA)
A real bank account at the upstream provider used to receive USD wires on behalf of a customer. Two modes: fiat (one per customer, holds the USD balance) and crypto (one per saved wallet, auto-converts inbound USD to stablecoin and forwards on-chain). See Virtual accounts.

Out of v1 scope (mentioned for context)

  • Audit logs page - all the events listed above are recorded; a dedicated UI to browse them lands in a follow-up.
  • Multi-currency - only USD in v1.
  • Organization self-service dashboard - customers don't log into Magma directly in v1.
  • Magma admin panel - used by Magma to onboard fintechs; not your concern.