Balance withdrawals
A withdrawal sends a customer’s balance back to them as real money. It’s off until you turn it on. Rules you set decide how much a customer can withdraw, when, and through which method. You pay out every request yourself.
Turning it on
Section titled “Turning it on”Open Payments → Balance withdrawal and tick Allow customers to request a withdrawal. Customers then see a withdrawal form on their dashboard.
The platform can switch withdrawals off for a business. If it has, the card says so, and your setting has no effect until the platform lifts it.
How a request works
Section titled “How a request works”- The customer enters an amount and submits the request. That amount is held: it leaves their available balance at once, so they can’t spend it on an order while you review it.
- The request appears under Withdrawal requests on the Payments page.
- You send the money through your own channel (bank transfer, Wise, crypto and so on).
- Click Approve, enter the payout reference and your authentication code. The held amount is deducted for good.
- Or click Reject, optionally with a reason. The held amount goes back to the customer’s balance.
Nothing is ever paid out automatically. Every request waits for you.
Every rule is optional, and all of them start off. Amounts are in your wallet currency, so you can set amount limits only after you’ve chosen it. Leave an amount blank for no limit.
| Rule | What it does |
|---|---|
| Minimum per request | A smaller request is refused. |
| Maximum per request | A larger request is refused. |
| Limit per customer, last 24 hours | The total of one customer’s requests in the last 24 hours, including the new one, can’t go over this. |
| Limit per customer, last 30 days | The same, over the last 30 days. |
| Waiting period after a top-up | A customer can’t request a withdrawal until this many days after their latest top-up. Each new top-up starts the wait again. A customer who has never topped up has no wait. 0 means no wait; the most is 365 days. |
| Pay back only through a method the customer topped up with | The customer chooses one of the methods they topped up with. They can ask for no more than came in through it, minus what they’ve already withdrawn through it. A commission passed on to the customer doesn’t count as having come in. |
The two limits count requests that are pending or approved. A rejected request no longer counts. The windows roll: “last 24 hours” means the 24 hours before the request, not a calendar day.
Rules are checked when a customer makes a request. A request you’ve already received isn’t affected if you change a rule later.
Why use them
Section titled “Why use them”- Waiting period: a card payment can be disputed weeks later. A waiting period stops a customer from topping up and withdrawing straight away, before a dispute could reach you.
- Paying back through the same method stops money coming in by one route (a card, say) and going out by another (crypto). That’s the usual way money is laundered through a balance.
- Limits cap how much one customer can take out before you notice.
Withdrawals carry money-laundering risk. Check your rules with your own legal adviser.
What the customer sees
Section titled “What the customer sees”Above the form, the customer sees each rule you’ve set, with how much of each limit they have left right now. During a waiting period, they also see the date and time they can request from. With pay-back-through-the-same-method on, they choose a method from a list that shows the most they can withdraw through each one. A customer who hasn’t topped up yet sees a note instead of the form.
If a request breaks a rule, it’s refused and the customer sees which rule, for example “The largest single withdrawal you can request is $500.00.” Nothing is held for a refused request.
A customer whose account was frozen after a card dispute can’t request a withdrawal.
Reviewing a request
Section titled “Reviewing a request”The Withdrawal requests table shows the customer, the amount, the date, and, with pay-back-through-the-same-method on, the method to pay it back through. Pay it out through that method.
Approving needs your authentication code (two-factor), every time.
Every change to these rules is recorded in the platform’s audit log, with who made it and the new values.