Patent attributes
Activation of a payment instrument via an interaction with a payment reader is described herein. A request for a payment instrument that is to be associated with an account of the merchant that is maintained in a ledger of a payment processing service can be received from a point-of-sale (POS) application associated with a merchant device of a merchant. The merchant device can receive a request to activate the payment instrument and can prompt the merchant to cause an interaction between the payment instrument and a payment reader associated with the merchant device. Payment data associated with the payment instrument can be received from the payment reader, and it can be determined that the payment data corresponds to known payment data associated with the payment instrument. Accordingly, the payment instrument can be activated to enable the merchant to use the payment instrument for accessing the account.