Terms of use.

About these terms

Settlo Pay is a product of Settlo Technologies Ltd ("Settlo Pay"), a company registered in Tanzania. Settlo Pay is a payment service provider registered by the Bank of Tanzania. In these terms, "we", "us" and "Settlo Pay" mean Settlo Technologies Ltd, and "you" means the business that opens an account together with everyone who uses it on that business’s behalf.

These terms cover three things: the public site at settlopay.co.tz, the merchant dashboard at app.settlopay.co.tz, and the API and tools you reach from it. They do not cover admin.settlopay.co.tz, which is our own internal back office and is not open to merchants.

You accept these terms when you use the site, and again when you tick the box at sign-up. We record which version you accepted. The version number is shown at the top of this page, so you can always tell which wording you agreed to.

Our privacy notice and our cookie policy are part of these terms. Where either says something more specific about personal data or about cookies, that more specific wording applies.

We have written these terms in plain language on purpose. If a sentence is unclear to you, ask us before you rely on it.

Who can open an account

You can open a Settlo Pay account if you run a business in Tanzania and you are allowed to act for it. At sign-up we ask whether the business is a sole proprietor, a company or an NGO.

You must be at least eighteen, give us your own name rather than someone else’s, and have the power to agree to these terms for the business.

Everything you tell us has to be true and kept current: your name, your business name, your TIN, the region and district you operate in, your mobile number and your email. If the ownership, the control or the directors of the business change, tell us.

Before your account can take live payments we verify the business. We ask for:

• Your business registration from BRELA.
• Your taxpayer identification number (TIN), and the document that shows it.
• A national ID for a director or for the owner.
• A NIDA check of the National Identification Number you give us, which asks you to confirm details only the holder should know.

Until verification passes, the account stays limited and cannot take live payments.

We can refuse an application, ask for more information, or ask again later. We screen against sanctions lists and against the anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing rules that apply to us, and we may decline an account or a payment on the strength of that screening without setting out our reasoning in detail.

What Settlo Pay does

Settlo Pay lets your business take payments from customers in Tanzania and move money out again, with one record of what happened.

• Collections over mobile money, including M-Pesa, Mixx by Yas and Airtel Money.
• Collections by bank transfer.
• Payment links you can send over WhatsApp or SMS, and QR codes, as those become available for your account.
• Card payments, where and when card acceptance is enabled for your business. The card section below sets out what changes when it is.
• Refunds, in full or in part, against a payment that succeeded.
• Payouts to a bank account or a mobile money wallet, transfers, bill payments, and saved beneficiaries.
• A balance, a ledger and an activity log, so every movement has an entry that explains it.
• API keys, webhooks, and the dashboard at app.settlopay.co.tz.

Which of these is switched on for you depends on your verification and on the rails enabled for your account. Not every rail is open to every business, and a rail can be withdrawn by the partner behind it.

Settlo Pay is not a bank. We do not take deposits, we pay no interest on any balance, we do not lend, and we do not give financial, tax or legal advice. A balance in your dashboard is a record of money we are holding to pay out to you, and it is not protected the way money in a bank account is.

We change the service as we build it, and we may add, alter or remove features. Where a change materially reduces what your account can do, we will tell you before it takes effect.

Your account and security

Your account is reached with an email and a password. Your integration is reached with API keys and webhook secrets. All of them are yours to keep safe.

Anything done with your credentials or your keys is treated as done by you. That includes a payout instruction, a refund, a change to your payout account, and any call made against the API.

• Do not share credentials or keys, and never put a live key in a browser page, a mobile app or a public code repository.
• Give each person on your team their own access rather than sharing one login, and remove people when they leave.
• Replace a key as soon as you suspect someone has seen it who should not have.
• Keep the email address and mobile number on the account current: we send sign-in codes and account notices to them.

Tell us immediately if you think someone else has your credentials or your keys, or that your account has been used without your agreement. Until you tell us, the activity stands as yours. Once you do, we may suspend the account or a key to protect funds while we look into it.

You are responsible for what the people you give access to do with the account.

Your money

Money your customers pay is recorded against your balance once the rail behind the payment confirms it. Until then it shows as pending, and a pending payment can still fail.

We pay out only to a payout account you have added and verified, in your own business name. We will not pay out to a third party.

How quickly a payout arrives depends on the rail and on the partner behind it, and each has its own cut-off times. Your dashboard shows the state of every payout, and that state is the accurate picture.

Your balance is a record of money we hold to pay out to you. It is not a deposit, it earns no interest, and it is not protected the way money in a bank account is.

We may hold, delay or reverse a payment or a payout where:

• We suspect fraud, or a payment does not look like your normal business.
• The rail or the partner behind the payment reverses it.
• A customer disputes a payment, including a card chargeback.
• A court or a Tanzanian authority instructs us to.
• Your verification is outstanding, or the details we hold no longer match.
• Your balance is negative, or fees are owed to us.
• The law that applies to us requires it.

If your balance goes negative, for example after a refund or a reversal, the shortfall is a debt you owe us. We may take it out of later collections, and we may ask you to pay it directly.

Refunds come out of your balance. If there is not enough in it, we may ask you to fund the refund before we send it.

Where we find that an entry was wrong, we correct it and show the correction in your ledger rather than quietly restating the figure.

Unless we agree otherwise in writing, we work in Tanzanian shillings (TZS).

Card payments

Card acceptance is not switched on by default. We are building it, and it becomes available to a business once the rail is live and that business’s verification allows it. Everything in this section applies from the moment card acceptance is enabled for you.

The card schemes set their own rules for businesses that accept their cards. Those rules bind you as well as these terms, they can change without us being asked, and where they conflict with these terms the scheme rules win.

You must never store, write down, photograph, or ask a customer to send you a full card number or the security code from the back of a card. Do not take card details over the phone, over WhatsApp or by email unless we have agreed a method with you in writing.

Card details are entered by the cardholder into a page or a device operated by the card processing partners we work with, and those partners hold them under the security standards the card schemes require of them. Settlo Pay never stores a full card number and never stores the security code. What we keep is a token that stands in for the card, the card brand, the expiry month and year, and the last four digits, so that you can match a payment to a customer and so that a refund can go back to the right card.

A card payment is approved by the cardholder’s bank at the moment it is made. That approval is not a guarantee that the money is finally yours: a card payment can be reversed afterwards, which is what makes cards different from the mobile money rails you may be used to.

A cardholder can dispute a payment through their own bank. That is a chargeback. When one is raised we will tell you and ask you for evidence that the sale was genuine, such as the order, the delivery record, and what the customer agreed to. The schemes allow a fixed window for that evidence. If you miss it, the dispute is normally decided against you.

You carry the amount of a chargeback decided against you, together with any charge the scheme or our partner applies to it. We take these from your balance, and where there is not enough in it we will invoice you.

If chargebacks on your account reach a level the schemes or our partners will not accept, they can require us to stop card acceptance for your business. We may have to act on that at short notice, because we have no discretion once such a requirement arrives.

Refund a card payment back to the original card, through Settlo Pay. Do not refund a card customer in cash or over mobile money: it does not stop a chargeback, and it can leave you paying twice.

The schemes may require an extra step that confirms the cardholder is who they say they are, such as a one-time code from their own bank. Where they do, we may require you to use it.

Banks and payment partners

We work with banks, with mobile money operators and with instant payment rails to move money in and out. They are our partners rather than yours, but their rules reach you.

Each partner sets its own limits, cut-off times, formats and checks, and those apply on top of these terms. A payout sent after a cut-off lands in the next window. A rail can carry a limit per payment or per day, which your dashboard will show as a refusal rather than a silent failure.

A partner can change, limit or suspend a rail, sometimes without warning us. When that happens the affected service pauses, your dashboard says so, and we restore it when the partner does.

To make and check a payment we pass on the information a partner or the law requires: your business name and identifiers, the details of the payment, and, where it is asked for, information about your business that we hold from verification. We pass on what is needed and no more.

A bank or another partner may require extra checks on your business or on a particular payment before it will process it, and may refuse. We will tell you what we are told.

We choose our partners with care, but a partner’s own outage or error is not something we control. The liability section below says how that falls between us.

Fees

We charge for collections, for payouts and for some other services. A fee is taken from the payment or from your balance at the time, and your ledger shows each one as its own entry, so you can see what you paid and what for.

Our rate card is not published yet. When it is, it will be on this site and in your dashboard, and your dashboard will show the rates that apply to your account rather than a general list. Until then, the rates that apply to you are the ones we have agreed with you in writing.

We may change fees. We will tell you before a change takes effect, and the notice will say what is changing and when. If you do not accept a change, you can close your account before it starts.

Fees may be subject to value added tax and to other taxes. Where tax applies, it is shown separately rather than folded into the fee.

Your bank or your mobile money operator may charge you their own fees on top of ours. We do not receive those and we cannot waive them.

You are responsible for your own taxes on what you sell. We are not your tax adviser, and the figures in your dashboard are a record of payments rather than a tax return.

Your obligations

Sell what you told us you sell. If the business changes materially, for example you start selling a different kind of product, tell us before you do: your verification and the rails open to you rest on what we understood the business to be.

Follow the law that applies to you, including consumer protection, tax, data protection, and the anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing rules.

Give your customers, before they pay: a clear description of what they are buying, the price in Tanzanian shillings, your delivery or fulfilment terms, and your refund and cancellation terms. Your business name should be recognisable on the payment, so a customer can tell who they paid.

Handle your customers’ complaints yourself. We are not the seller. A customer who is unhappy with what you sold has a claim against you rather than against us, and if one comes to us first we will point them to you.

Keep your own records of what you sold and to whom, for at least as long as the law requires. When we ask for information we need in order to meet an obligation of our own, a partner’s requirement, or a request from an authority, give it to us within the time we ask for it.

Use the dashboard and the API as they are meant to be used, and do not try to get around a limit, a check or a refusal.

Prohibited use

You must not use Settlo Pay for any of the following. The list is not exhaustive, and we may add to it as rails, partners and the law change.

• Anything against the law in Tanzania, or in the country where your customer is.
• Money laundering, terrorist financing, or getting around sanctions.
• Taking payments on behalf of another business, or letting another business use your account so that its payments look like yours.
• Taking a payment a customer did not agree to, or misrepresenting what is being sold.
• Deliberately generating chargebacks or disputes, or testing stolen or machine-generated card numbers.
• Gambling, betting or lotteries, unless we have agreed it with you in writing.
• Financial services you are not permitted to provide, including taking deposits, lending, and running an investment scheme.
• Pyramid and multi-level schemes, and any offer built on recruiting other people rather than on selling something.
• Drugs and drug paraphernalia, weapons and ammunition, wildlife and wildlife products, counterfeit or stolen goods.
• Material that exploits children, human trafficking, and any content produced without the consent of the people in it.
• Adult content, unless we have agreed it with you in writing.
• Buying and selling cryptocurrency, unless we have agreed it with you in writing.
• Selling personal data.
• Attacking, probing or overloading the site, the dashboard or the API; harvesting it with automated scripts; pretending to be someone else; forging headers or identifiers; or trying to reach data that is not yours.
• Reselling access to the API, or putting our service behind your own brand as though it were yours, unless we have agreed it with you in writing.

If you are unsure whether something is allowed, ask us first. It is far easier to answer before an account goes live than to unwind payments afterwards.

API and integrations

The API and webhooks are part of the service, and these terms apply to them.

• Treat an API key like a password. Keep live keys on your own server, never in a browser or a mobile app.
• Use the sandbox for testing. Sandbox payments are not real money and must never be shown to a customer as though they were.
• Stay within the rate limits we publish. Past them we may slow down or refuse calls, and repeated abuse can suspend a key.
• Check the signature on every webhook before you act on it, and answer quickly so we know it arrived. We retry a delivery that fails, so build your endpoint to handle the same event more than once.
• Keep your webhook endpoint available and its secret private. Where deliveries keep failing we may switch the endpoint off, and we will tell you when we do.

We version the API. We will give notice before a change that breaks an existing version, and we will keep the older version working for a reasonable period. A change that closes a security hole may have to be made immediately.

We log API calls so that we can support you, investigate incidents, and detect abuse.

Data and privacy

Our privacy notice explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and how long we keep it. It applies to your use of Settlo Pay, and you should read it alongside these terms.

You are responsible for the personal data you send us about your customers. You must have a proper reason under Tanzania’s Personal Data Protection Act, 2022 for collecting it, you must have your own privacy notice, and your customers should be able to see that Settlo Pay is handling the payment.

For your customers’ personal data you decide why it is collected. We handle it in order to run the service for you, and separately we handle some of it to meet obligations of our own, such as the checks the law requires us to make and the records we have to keep. Where we handle it for those obligations, we answer for it ourselves.

We may use information about how the service is used, in aggregated and de-identified form, to improve it, to understand how rails behave, and to report on the platform as a whole. That work does not identify you or your customers.

Keep your team’s access current and remove people when they leave: access to your dashboard is access to your customers’ data.

If you become aware of a security incident affecting data you have sent us, tell us straight away so that we can act.

Suspension and closure

You can close your account at any time. Tell us through the dashboard or through the contact page, stop taking payments, and settle anything owed. We pay the remaining balance to your verified payout account once we are satisfied that no further refunds, reversals or disputes are coming.

We may suspend or limit your account, a rail or a key, sometimes immediately and without notice, where:

• We suspect fraud, or use that breaks these terms.
• A court, an authority or a partner requires it.
• Your verification is incomplete, or the details we hold no longer look right.
• There is a security problem with your account or your keys.
• Chargebacks or refunds on your account reach a level a scheme or a partner will not accept.
• You become insolvent or stop trading.

We will tell you what we can, as soon as we can. Sometimes the law or an instruction we have received stops us from explaining why, and in that case we will say at least that much.

Closing an account does not end what you already owe. You remain responsible for refunds, chargebacks, a negative balance and fees incurred before closure, and we may hold an amount back for as long as a dispute can still be raised against payments you took.

After closure we keep records for as long as the law requires us to keep them.

Intellectual property

The site, the dashboard, the API, our documentation, the Settlo Pay name and our marks belong to us or to the people we work with. Nothing in these terms hands any of that to you.

While your account is open and you are keeping to these terms, we give you permission to use the service and our documentation in order to take payments for your own business. That permission is personal to you, cannot be passed on, and ends when your account does.

You must not copy, modify, reverse engineer, resell or frame the service, and you must not remove any notice of ownership from it.

Your own brand stays yours. You allow us to show your business name to your customers where it is needed to display or explain a payment, and to pass it to a partner where a payment cannot be made without it. We will ask you first before using your name or your logo in our own marketing.

If you send us an idea or a suggestion, we may use it without owing you anything for it. Do not send us anything you consider confidential that way.

Liability

We provide the service with reasonable skill and care. We cannot promise that it will always be available, that every payment will succeed, or that a partner will always be up, because payments depend on rails we do not own.

We are not responsible for:

• The goods or services you sell, or any dispute between you and your customer.
• Your own business decisions, including who you sell to and what you charge.
• A failure by a bank, a mobile money operator, a card scheme or another partner, beyond passing on what we are told.
• Loss that follows from you not keeping your credentials, keys or webhook secrets safe.
• Indirect or consequential loss, including lost profit, lost business, lost data, lost goodwill and wasted expenditure.

For everything else, our total liability to you for all claims in any twelve-month period is limited to the fees you paid us for the service in the three months before the event that gave rise to the claim.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that the law does not allow us to exclude or limit, including liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

Indemnity

You will cover us, our staff and our partners against claims, losses, fines and reasonable costs that arise from:

• Your breach of these terms.
• The goods or services you sell, and your dealings with your customers.
• Your use of the service in a way these terms do not allow.
• Your breach of the law, including data protection and tax law.

Where such a claim is made, we will tell you about it promptly, we will not settle it without your agreement, and you may take part in defending it. You should not agree anything on our behalf without asking us.

Changes to these terms

We may change these terms, for example when we add a rail, when a partner or the law requires it, or when we make the wording clearer. A changed document is published here with a new version number and a new date.

Where a change materially affects your account, we will tell you before it takes effect, through the dashboard or by email to the address on the account.

If you keep using Settlo Pay after a change takes effect, you accept it. If you do not accept it, close your account before it starts.

When you accepted these terms at sign-up we recorded the version. If you want to see the wording you agreed to, ask us and we will tell you which version it was.

Governing law and disputes

These terms, and any dispute about them, are governed by the law of the United Republic of Tanzania.

If something goes wrong, tell us first. Most problems are quicker to fix directly, and you can reach us through the contact page on this site or from inside your dashboard. We will try to resolve a complaint with you before it becomes anything more.

Where we cannot resolve it, the courts of Tanzania have jurisdiction, and both of us agree to that.

Either of us may still ask a court for an urgent order where one is genuinely needed, for example to stop a breach that cannot wait.