Payments & escrow
How to fund a payment
3 min read
What happens when you pay through Wlbr, and where your funds are held once they leave your bank.
The short version
When you pay a Wlbr payment request, the funds go straight from your bank account into the Wlbr client trust account - not to the seller. They sit there, in your name's corner of the ledger, until you approve the work. Only then are they released to the seller.
Step by step
- Open the payment link the seller sent you and check the amount and description.
- Choose your bank - Wlbr uses open banking (powered by Akahu), so there is no card surcharge and no card details to type.
- Confirm the payment in your bank's app or site. You are authorising a one-off payment to the Wlbr trust account.
- You land back on Wlbr with a receipt and a link to your payment's status page. The seller is notified the job is funded.
Where the funds actually are
Your payment is held on trust in a dedicated BNZ client trust account, separate from Wlbr's own operating funds. Every movement is recorded in Wlbr's append-only, hash-chained ledger, and your payment's status page shows where your payment is up to.
If the job falls through before you approve it, the funds go back to the bank account they came from. If that account has closed, Wlbr refunds only to another account in your own name after the bank confirms the name matches. See our refunds guide for timings.