Settlement: getting paid into your own bank
2 min readLast updated 16 September 2026 Read as plain text
How a balance becomes money in your bank account, what it costs, and how long it takes.
Money you collect sits in your Ultraner balance. Settlement is the step that moves it to a bank account you own, in whatever country you bank in.
It matters because collections and payouts do not cover the same map. Ultraner collects mobile money in fourteen African markets, and pays out to mobile wallets in Tanzania today, with more opening as each payout rail is verified. A bank wire reaches everywhere, which is how a business collecting in Nairobi and banking in London gets paid.
What happens, in order
- 1You add a bank account once. It is reviewed by a person before anything can be sent to it, usually within a business day, because a wire cannot be recalled.
- 2You request a settlement. The money leaves your balance immediately, so the same funds cannot be promised twice, and the request waits as pending.
- 3Ultraner reviews and releases it. The wire is sent and the settlement becomes in transit, with an expected arrival date.
- 4The money lands, and the settlement is marked paid. If it comes back instead, everything is returned to your balance, fee included.
What it costs
Three separate charges, kept separate so you can see whose is whose:
- The wire fee, which is what the banks take. A real cost, passed on, and corrected to the actual figure if the correspondent charges differently.
- The FX spread, but only when your bank account is in a different currency from your balance.
- Ultraner’s own percentage.
All three are quoted before you commit, and all three are stored on the settlement afterwards, because rates and fee schedules change and a settlement from March still has to explain itself in June.
How long it takes
Within the country the money is sent from, about one business day. Within a currency union such as the East African Community or the XOF zone, about two. Anywhere else, about three, because the money travels through a correspondent bank, usually via USD or EUR.
Weekends are not business days, so a Friday request generally lands on Tuesday rather than Sunday.
If a settlement fails
You get everything back, including our fee. A wire that bounces is usually a detail on the account that did not match, which is exactly what the verification step exists to catch before the money moves.