Instant Credit
Steam enforces a 7-day trade protection period on CS2 trades. Without instant credit, your users would have to wait a full week before seeing their balance after depositing skins. The instant credit system solves this by advancing a portion of the deposit value immediately, backed by collateral.
Rust trades have no trade protection period. Rust deposits are always credited instantly and in full, regardless of any settings described on this page.
How It Works
When a user deposits CS2 skins with isInstant: true (the default), AssetPay splits the deposit value into two parts:
preCredit - credited to the user’s balance immediately when the trade enters HOLD statuspendingCredit - credited when the 7-day hold ends and the trade reaches COMPLETED
The split depends on how much collateral is available for that user. More collateral means a larger instant portion.
preCredit + pendingCredit = totalPrice (always)
Example
A user deposits a skin worth $100. Based on their profile, $60 of collateral is available.
| Field | Value |
|---|
totalPrice | $100.00 |
preCredit | $60.00 |
pendingCredit | $40.00 |
Collateral
Collateral is the pool of funds backing instant credit. It comes from two sources:
- Provider collateral - calculated by AssetPay’s risk model based on the user’s trust score, deposit history, verification level, and the data you pass in
clientData
- Merchant collateral - optional additional collateral you can provide to increase your users’ instant credit
The total collateral available for a deposit is:
availableCollateral = (providerCollateral + merchantCollateral) - activeExposure
preCredit from all of the user’s currently pending trades (trades in INITIATED, ACTIVE, HOLD, or ESCROW status). This prevents a single user from leveraging the same collateral pool across many simultaneous deposits.
What Determines Collateral
The risk model evaluates four factors to calculate provider collateral:
1. Deposit History (Platform Readiness)
How much the user has deposited through AssetPay historically. A user with $60,000+ in completed deposits has full platform readiness. A brand new user starts at zero.
2. External Data (clientData)
The clientData you pass when authenticating a client feeds directly into the risk calculation. Four fields matter:
| Field | Effect |
|---|
totalWager | Higher wager history on your platform increases external trust. Users who have wagered hundreds of thousands of dollars are treated as lower risk. |
kycLevel | KYC level 3 (your platform’s highest verification) unlocks better thresholds. |
fiatDeposits | Having fiat deposit history is a positive signal. |
cryptoDeposits | Having crypto deposit history is a positive signal. Combined with fiatDeposits, having both payment methods active gives the best scoring. |
3. Trust Factor
Every user has a trust factor that starts near zero and grows with each completed deposit. It acts as a multiplier on the readiness scores.
Trust increases when deposits complete successfully. Larger deposits produce bigger trust gains, up to a per-trade cap.
Trust decreases when trades are reverted. Reversals carry a penalty that can push trust negative. A user with negative trust gets zero instant credit until they rebuild it through successful deposits.
4. Verification Level
Users who complete identity verification get higher collateral floors and caps. See Identity Verification for details.
| Level | Meaning | Effect |
|---|
| 0 | Unverified | Baseline collateral, lower instant credit cap |
| 1 | Verified (PictureID) | Higher collateral floor, significantly higher instant credit cap |
Verification Caps
Even when a user has plenty of collateral available, the instant credit per deposit is capped by their verification level:
| Verification Level | Instant Credit Cap (per deposit) |
|---|
| Level 0 (unverified) | Up to $50 |
| Level 1 (verified) | Up to $1,000 |
COMPLETED. A verified user making the same deposit could receive the full $500 instantly if they have enough collateral.
Enabling Instant Credit
Instant credit is enabled by default. When you initiate a deposit, the isInstant field defaults to true:
{
"items": [...],
"game": "730",
"isInstant": true
}
isInstant: false to skip instant credit entirely. The full amount will be held until COMPLETED.
Reading the Collateral
The inventory endpoint returns the user’s available collateral before they start depositing:
{
"data": {
"inventory": [...],
"count": 42,
"collateral": 150.00
}
}
collateral field tells you how much instant credit (in USD) is currently available for this user. Use it to show users an estimate of how much they’ll receive instantly before they select items.
Balance Handling
Your callback handler should credit the user in two stages:
| Callback Event | Action |
|---|
HOLD | Credit the preCredit amount to the user’s balance |
COMPLETED | Credit the pendingCredit amount (the remainder) |
REVERTED | Reverse the preCredit amount that was already credited |
isInstant was false or the user had zero collateral, preCredit will be 0 and the full amount arrives on COMPLETED.
Always handle REVERTED callbacks. If a trade is reversed during the hold period, you must deduct the instant credit that was already given. Failing to handle reversals creates a balance discrepancy.
Trust and Reversals
Reversals carry real consequences. When a deposit is reverted:
- The user’s trust factor takes a penalty proportional to the reverted value
- Their deposit history counters are reduced
- If the user is identity-verified, the penalty can cascade to all accounts linked to the same identity
This means if someone verifies their identity, links multiple Steam accounts, and then gets a reversal on one account, all of their linked accounts take a trust hit. This is intentional and prevents multi-account abuse.
Maximizing Instant Credit for Your Users
To give your users the best instant credit experience:
- Pass accurate
clientData on every authentication call. The more context you provide (wager history, KYC level, payment methods), the higher the external readiness score.
- Encourage identity verification. Verified users get dramatically higher instant credit caps ($50 vs $1,000 by default).
- Keep
clientData fresh. It’s updated on every authentication call, so pass current values each time a user starts a session.
- Show the
collateral field from the inventory response in your UI so users know what to expect before depositing.
