Shariz never holds your money
Contributions are held by TradeSafe, an independent South African escrow provider, in its trust account, not by us. Shariz is the software that instructs it.
Where the money actually goes
When you contribute to an event, your money moves from you to TradeSafe. It does not pass through a Shariz account, because we do not have one in this flow. Every movement is an instruction we send to TradeSafe over their API, and every instruction is recorded against the event.
- 1
You pay
Your card is processed by TradeSafe. Shariz never sees or stores your card number.
- 2
TradeSafe holds
Funds sit in escrow against the event, in TradeSafe’s trust account. Not in a Shariz balance.
- 3
The group approves
An expense has to clear the approval rules the event’s participants set before anything is released.
- 4
Release or refund
On approval, funds go to the payee. If the event is cancelled, they go back to the people who put them in.
What Shariz can and cannot do
The limits matter more than the promises. These are structural, and they follow from not holding the funds, not from a policy we could quietly change.
✓Shariz can
- •Create an escrow transaction when an organiser starts an event
- •Ask TradeSafe to collect a contribution from a participant
- •Instruct a payout only after the expense approval rules an event’s participants set
- •Instruct a refund back to the original contributors
×Shariz cannot
- •Hold your money. We operate no account that your funds pass through
- •Move funds to ourselves beyond the disclosed fee
- •Release event funds without the approvals the event requires
- •Change where a refund goes. It returns to whoever contributed
The questions worth asking
Who holds my money?
TradeSafe does, in its trust account, as an independent escrow provider. Shariz is a technology company. We build the software that instructs TradeSafe. We are not a bank and we are not a deposit-taking institution, and we don't describe ourselves as either.
What happens to my money if Shariz goes away?
Your funds are held by TradeSafe, not by Shariz, so they do not form part of Shariz's assets. If Shariz ceased to operate, the escrowed funds would remain with TradeSafe and be dealt with under our agreement with them and their obligations to you. This is the main practical reason the money sits there and not with us.
What do you charge?
Shariz takes 2.9% of each contribution, deducted from the event's pooled funds. We charge nothing on refunds or payouts. TradeSafe charges its own escrow and card-processing fee on top, which it sets. Full detail on the pricing page.
Are you regulated?
Shariz does not hold or control customer funds, so we operate as a software provider rather than as a financial institution. The custody and payment activity is performed by TradeSafe. We're not going to dress this up: if you're assessing us, the entity whose regulatory standing matters for your money is TradeSafe, and you should satisfy yourself about them directly.
Is my card safe?
Card details are entered on TradeSafe's hosted payment page and are never sent to, processed by, or stored on Shariz servers. That's a statement about card data specifically. It is narrower than a blanket promise about your money, and we would rather be precise about which of the two we are making.
Still deciding whether to trust us with a group’s money?
That’s the right instinct. Read what we charge, then ask us anything we haven’t answered here.