Quickstart

DescriptorAPI turns the raw text a bank prints for a card transaction into the merchant behind it. You send a descriptor, you get back a name, category, website, location, payment processor and a confidence score.

1. Get an API key

Create a free account and copy your key from the dashboard. Keys start with dk_live_ and are shown once, so store it somewhere safe, such as an environment variable:

export DESCRIPTORAPI_KEY="dk_live_…"

2. Send a descriptor

Post the statement line, exactly as your bank or processor gives it to you. Add the card country in country if you know it; it helps with ambiguous names.

curl https://api.descriptorapi.com/v1/enrich \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DESCRIPTORAPI_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"descriptor": "POS 4521 CAREEM*RIDE DXB AE", "country": "AE"}'

3. Read the response

The fields you will use most:

• merchant: the clean merchant (name, category, website, logo), or null when we cannot tell. We never invent a merchant.
• confidence: how sure we are, from 0 to 1. See Confidence and source.
• location and processor: where the payment happened and which aggregator or wallet carried it, when the descriptor says so.
• request_id: quote it if you contact us about a result.

The full response is on the right, and every field is described in the API reference.

Next steps

• Enriching a backlog? Use the batch endpoint for up to 100 descriptors per call.
• Handle errors and rate limits before you go live.
• Try your own descriptors in the playground, no key needed.