A little clarity.
A lot more confidence.

No. Arkive is free for talent — there's no signup fee, no subscription, and no cut taken from your booking. The platform fee is carried entirely by the promoter or brand who funds the deal, agreed at MSA signing. Your fee clears in full, less only what your own contract specifies for agency commission or tax withholding.

Once a show is performed or a deliverable is signed off, release is triggered through multi-factor authorisation — PIN, facial biometric, and a six-digit code. Cleared funds are paid directly into your South African bank account, typically within 1–2 business days. There's no in-app wallet to cash out and no platform currency to convert: the money moves from the trust account to your bank, in Rands.

Funds release the moment a booking's milestones are verified — biometric check-in and GPS confirmation for a live show, or a signed-off deliverable for a campaign. The smart contract attached to each booking defines exactly what "done" means before any release is authorised. For staged campaigns, the amount can be split across milestones and released tranche by tranche as each is completed. Once release is authorised, payouts clear to the bank in 1–2 business days.

Arkive is built for the South African market, and payouts settle to South African bank accounts in Rands. International talent performing in South Africa can be booked and paid where they hold a local account or are represented by an SA-based agency; cross-border settlement outside that arrangement isn't supported today. If you're a touring act or an agency handling inbound bookings, contact us and we'll walk through what's possible for your setup.

Promoters and brands carry the platform fee — a small percentage of the gross booking value, agreed at MSA signing. Talent never pays Arkive. Your booking fee clears in full, less only what your existing contract specifies for agency commission or tax withholding.

No platform-level minimum. Small bookings process end-to-end through the same regulated rails as larger transactions. Brand campaigns sometimes set their own per-creator floor for operational reasons, but that's a brand-side preference — Arkive imposes no floor on talent or promoter accounts.

Fund one smart contract for the whole campaign and Arkive disburses to each creator individually as their milestone is verified. A single deposit into the Standard Bank trust account is split according to the campaign's contract — every creator sees only their own terms, and each release is triggered by that creator's signed-off deliverable. You get procurement-grade control from one funded pool, without cutting dozens of separate payments by hand.

Yes. Every booking carries a full audit trail — the funded smart contract, smart-contract milestones, biometric and GPS verification, and the release record — exportable as a reconciled statement. Because funds move through a regulated TradeSafe rail and a Standard Bank trust account rather than ad-hoc EFTs, finance and procurement teams get clean, defensible records for every Rand disbursed.

Cancellation outcomes are governed by the smart contract attached to each booking, calibrated for South African labour and venue law. Force-majeure cancellations (state, weather, venue closure) are insured by Liberty up to a defined sub-limit. Disputed cancellations escalate through Arkive's mediation desk; unresolved cases route to the FAIS Ombud.

Yes — only KYC'd talent can accept a booking, so there are no identity surprises on showday. Each performer completes facial biometric verification and document checks during onboarding, typically cleared in minutes, and on the day a one-tap check-in confirms the device is within a 10km radius of the venue. That means the person you booked is the person who arrives, and attendance is provable rather than assumed.

Deposits are locked in smart contract the moment you fund a booking, ring-fenced in the Standard Bank trust account and underwritten by Liberty — not sitting in an artist's personal account weeks ahead of the date. The funds are committed but untouchable until the smart contract's conditions are met, so a hold is genuinely secure for both sides. Where terms allow a partial deposit, only the agreed portion is vaulted up front, with the balance funded ahead of release.

Yes. Any party can request cancellation before deliverables are met, and the outcome follows the cancellation terms written into that booking's smart contract — including any deposit or kill-fee schedule agreed up front. Because the funds are already vaulted, cancellation is a controlled settlement rather than a scramble to recover money: the contract determines who is owed what, and the funds release accordingly. Force-majeure cancellations remain covered by Liberty up to a defined sub-limit.

Standard onboarding completes within 48 hours. KYC documents, banking details, and biometric capture are submitted via the dashboard — no in-person appointments required for individual users. Enterprise procurement (MSAs, vendor onboarding) typically takes 5–7 business days, depending on the brand's internal review cycle.

Yes. Agencies and managers run every artist on one regulated ledger, with a hundred bookings visible in a single dashboard rather than scattered across WhatsApp threads and spreadsheets. Each artist keeps their own verified identity and payout details, while you retain oversight of the roster, the pipeline, and every milestone in flight.

Commission splits are configured per artist or per booking and applied automatically at release. When funds clear smart contract, Arkive routes the agreed percentage to the agency and the balance to the artist in the same payout cycle — no manual reconciliation, no chasing your cut after the fact. Splits are written into the booking's smart contract, so every party can see the terms before the show.

Yes. Agencies receive audit-ready statements — reconciled quarterly, or on demand — covering every booking, split, and payout across the roster. Because all activity runs through the regulated TradeSafe rail and the Standard Bank trust account, the numbers reconcile cleanly for accounting, tax, and multi-leg tour settlement.

Tickets and bookings on Arkive tie back to verified talent and funded events, so what you buy is backed by a real, KYC'd counterparty rather than an anonymous reseller. The same smart contract platform that protects performers protects fans — money is held in trust rather than handed over on faith, which is what makes a purchase genuine and traceable.

Your payment is held in a ring-fenced Standard Bank trust account via TradeSafe, our FSCA-regulated infrastructure partner, and underwritten by Liberty — not paid straight to an organiser who could disappear. Card and banking details are encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256) and handled under POPIA. Funds are only released when the agreed conditions are met.

Because your money sits in smart contract rather than in an organiser's account, a cancellation is a controlled refund rather than a fight to get your money back. Outcomes follow the terms attached to the booking, and force-majeure cancellations (state, weather, venue closure) are covered by Liberty up to a defined sub-limit. Disputed cases route through Arkive's mediation desk, and ultimately to the FAIS Ombud.

A smart contract on Arkive is the coded agreement that governs a booking — it holds funds in a neutral, ring-fenced trust account until every party's obligations are met. When a promoter or brand funds a deal, the money doesn't come to Arkive and it doesn't go straight to the talent — it lands in a trust account held at Standard Bank and administered by TradeSafe, our FSCA-regulated infrastructure partner. It stays there, underwritten by Liberty, until the agreed deliverable is verified. Neither party can move the funds unilaterally; release only happens when the smart contract's conditions are met.

Biometric facial templates are stored as one-way cryptographic hashes — the original face image is never retained on Arkive systems. All identity data is encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3), processed under POPIA, and accessible only to the Information Officer for verified regulatory or legal requests.

Disputes are worked first through Arkive's in-house mediation desk, which reviews the booking's audit trail — the funded smart contract, the smart-contract milestones, biometric and GPS records, and the deal's message history. Because every step is logged, most disagreements are settled on the evidence within a few business days. Funds stay safely held in the Standard Bank trust account throughout — neither side is paid out while a dispute is open. Cases that can't be resolved internally escalate to the FAIS Ombud, the independent statutory route for financial-services complaints in South Africa.

Payouts clear to any major South African bank account. Smart Contract itself is held in a dedicated trust account at Standard Bank, our banking partner, while bookings can be funded from across the local network — FNB, Investec, Nedbank, Bidvest Bank, Capitec and others. As long as talent holds a South African bank account, funds clear directly to it, usually within 1–2 business days.

All personal and identity data is processed under POPIA, encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3). Biometric templates are stored as one-way cryptographic hashes rather than raw images, and access is restricted to the Information Officer for verified regulatory or legal requests. Location is captured only at check-in, never tracked continuously, and financial data stays within the regulated smart contract platform.