Withdrawals and payouts
A payout that is held against your balance the moment you request it, executed under four eyes above a threshold, and reversed on the ledger if the rail refuses — so money is never both spent and still spendable.
Merchants settling takings, customers cashing out, businesses paying suppliers and staff.
Built, tested and switched off. It is a function of an issuer or an acquirer, so it stays off until the corresponding authorisation is recorded, or until an authorised institution operates it on the platform. Nothing here is offered to a customer meanwhile. This service will be available after the authorisation of the Banque Centrale du Congo; it is switched off by the administrator
The problem
If a platform decrements your balance and then the payout fails, you are owed money by a system that no longer thinks it owes you. If it does not decrement, you can spend the same money twice while the payout is in flight.
How it works
- Request the payout; the amount is held against your balance immediately.
- Your available balance drops by the held amount, so the same money cannot be spent twice.
- Above the threshold the business sets, a second person approves before it executes.
- On success the hold is settled; on refusal it is released and your balance is whole again.
What you can check
Facts about the running platform rather than adjectives. Each one is visible in the product, the API reference or the ledger.
- A hold reduces available balance without removing the money, so a payout in flight can neither be spent again nor disappear.
- Payouts above the configured threshold require a second approver; the proposer cannot approve their own.
- A failed payout is reversed by an opposing posting, so the ledger shows the attempt and the return rather than hiding both.
- Destination changes are protected: altering where settlement money goes is a controlled action, not a profile edit.
- Every payout carries a reference that appears on the statement and on the rail’s own confirmation.
What it costs
The payout fee is shown before you confirm, with the amount that will arrive at the other end.
Questions
My payout failed. Where is my money?
Back in your available balance. A failed payout is reversed by an opposing posting, and both the attempt and the return are visible on your statement — so you can see what happened rather than having to ask.
Why does a big payout need someone else to approve it?
Because the single most effective control against both fraud and catastrophic mistakes is that one person cannot move large sums alone. The threshold is set by the business, so day-to-day amounts are not slowed down.
Someone changed my settlement account. How?
They should not be able to quietly. Changing where settlement money goes is a protected action with its own controls, separate from editing an ordinary profile detail, precisely because it is the single most valuable field in the account.
Read next
Settlement and statements
A settlement statement that is numbered, hashed and reproducible, showing the provider fee, the platform fee and the tax on it as separate lines rather than one net figure.
Agents and cash
Cash in and out through a human being near you, with the agent paid a commission the app shows before you confirm and a float the platform watches so the agent does not run dry mid-queue.
The ledger
A double-entry ledger where balances are derived from postings rather than stored, corrections are opposing entries rather than edits, and invariants are enforced at write time instead of checked by a nightly job.