Scheduled release
Each merchant settles on its own schedule — same day through seven days, or a custom arrangement. A scheduled pass releases what has come due.
Infrastructure · Real-time SettlementWhere a transaction
Where a transaction
becomes settled money.
Between a captured payment and money a merchant can use, there is a lifecycle: a schedule, possible holds, a reserve, adjustments, and a posting that has to balance. BINK makes each of those a state you can name and audit.
Settlement schedules
T+0Same day
T+1Next day
T+2Two daysDefault
T+7Seven days
Set per merchant, with a custom arrangement available where the standard schedules do not fit.
ScheduleT+0 through T+7, per merchant
StatesSeven, with fixed transitions
ReserveHeld, then released on time
AuditHash-chained per change
The ordinary path
Captured to settled.
The route most settlements take. Four more states sit off this path, and the table below is the whole machine — including which of them can come back.
- CapturedRecordedA settlement record is created for the transaction.
- PendingScheduledIt waits for the date its schedule places it on.
- ProcessingReleasedThe scheduled pass picks it up and posts it.
- SettledFinalFunds are settled, and the record is closed.
The state machine
Seven states, and no others.
A settlement is always in exactly one of these. The moves between them are a table in code, checked on every transition — which is what stops a settled record from quietly returning to pending. Filled markers are the ordinary path.
StateWhat it meansCan move to
Pending (on the ordinary path)Created and waiting for its scheduled date.ProcessingHeldFailed
Processing (on the ordinary path)Being released. There is no path back to pending.SettledFailed
Settled (on the ordinary path)Complete, and still open to correction.ReversedReconciling
HeldPaused with a reason: settlement, compliance, fraud or review.Pending
FailedDid not complete. Returns to be retried rather than abandoned.Pending
ReconcilingUnder review against the books.Settled
ReversedUnwound after settling.Terminal — nothing follows
Settlement here is scheduled, not instant. BINK publishes no settlement speed figure and makes no claim about rail-level timing.
Integration
What this looks like to build against.
A settlement lifecycle is only useful to an integrator if it is closed — if there are no states outside the list and no transitions outside the table.
- You read state, not guess
- A settlement always reports exactly one of the seven states. There is no derived or implied status to compute on your side.
- Transitions are refused
- A move that is not in the table is rejected rather than recorded. An integration cannot put a settlement into a state the machine does not allow.
- Replay is safe
- A posting is keyed on the reference it settles, so re-sending the same settlement returns the original record instead of creating a second.
- History is verifiable
- Each transition appends a hash-chained event, and the chain can be verified — a check that reports the exact point where it breaks.
In practice
What the controls are for.
Settle faster for a trusted merchant
Move a merchant from the default two-day schedule to same or next day without changing anything about how their payments are taken.
Hold without unwinding
Pause a settlement for compliance or review with the reason attached, and release it back to pending when the question is answered.
Retain against chargebacks
Keep a configurable portion back for a defined period, released automatically once the hold has elapsed.
Settle into another currency
Where the settlement currency differs from the transaction currency, the conversion resolves through the FX engine inside the same flow.
What settlement does
Operational, not optimistic.
The parts a finance team asks about first: when money is released, what can stop it, what is retained, and whether the record can be trusted afterwards.
Holds with a reason
A settlement can be held for compliance, for fraud review, or by hand. The reason is part of the record, not a note in a ticket.
Rolling reserve
A configurable portion can be retained and released automatically once its hold period has elapsed, without anyone remembering to do it.
Adjustments
Refunds, chargebacks and manual corrections attach to the settlement they belong to, so a net figure can always be explained.
Tamper-evident history
Every state change appends a hash-chained event. The chain can be verified, and a verification reports the exact point where it breaks.
Balanced before written
Debits and credits are asserted equal, per currency, before a posting is committed — inside a single serializable transaction.
Operational detail
How it behaves.
- What the timing is
- Settlement is released on a schedule, not on arrival. Each merchant settles on same-day, next-day, two-day, seven-day or a custom arrangement, and a scheduled pass releases what has become due. BINK publishes no settlement-speed figure and offers no timing guarantee.
- What runs immediately
- The parts that do happen at once are the record and the accounting: a settlement is created, transitioned and posted synchronously, each change appending its own audit event as it occurs.
- Enforced transitions
- The permitted moves between states are a table in code, checked on every transition. An unlisted move is rejected rather than recorded.
- The posting
- Settlement debits the acquiring account and credits the fee and the net amount as separate legs, so the gross, the fee and the net are all readable afterwards.
- Idempotent
- A posting is keyed on the reference it settles. Replaying the same settlement returns the original record instead of creating a second one.
- Distributed lock
- The scheduled pass runs under an exclusive lock, so multiple application instances cannot process the same due record concurrently.
- Cross-currency
- Where the settlement currency differs from the transaction currency, the conversion is resolved through the FX engine as part of the same flow.
- Freeze
- If payouts are disabled for a merchant, settlement refuses rather than queueing work that must later be unwound.
- Chart of accounts
- Postings are made against named accounts — available, pending, reserve, in-transit, locked, clearing, settlement, chargeback reserve, treasury and the FX bridge.
- Audit coupling
- A batch cannot be marked complete without its audit record: the status change and the audit write happen in one transaction.
In the platform
Either side of settlement.
Settlement is the middle of a longer story: something routed the payment here, and something checks the books afterwards.
Infrastructure
Every surface.
RoutingHow a transaction is matched to a processor.FX engineRates, locked quotes and currency conversion.Real-time Settlement ·The lifecycle from captured to settled.Liquidity networkPer-currency pools and the movements against them.ReconciliationChecks that the books agree with the ledger.BankingThe regulated foundation the platform runs on.
Settlement
Know where the money is.
One state per settlement, one record per change, and a chain you can verify from end to end.