Refund and Cancellation Policy
How cancellations, refunds and payment release are planned to work in the Nodal Pay flow, before a Deal Card is confirmed, after a payment is secured, and when something goes wrong.
1. Scope and status of this policy
This Refund and Cancellation Policy is issued by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] ("Nodal Pay", "we", "us"). It describes how cancellations, refunds and payment release are planned to work within the Nodal Pay app, which is currently under development and not yet available to the public.
Nodal Pay is designed as a protected payment flow: a buyer and a seller agree terms on a Deal Card, the buyer's payment is secured through supported payment rails, and the payment is released to the seller after the agreed conditions are met. The final payment and fund handling structure will depend on applicable law and the regulated payment partners we work with, and this policy will be updated and finalised before launch to reflect those arrangements.
This policy should be read together with our Terms of Use and Dispute Resolution Policy. Where this policy refers to timelines, they are indicative expectations only. For an overview of the planned product flow, see How It Works on our homepage.
2. Cancelling before a Deal Card is confirmed
A Deal Card is the shared record of what the buyer and seller have agreed, the item or service, the price, and the conditions for completion. Until both parties have confirmed the Deal Card, no payment is collected and no commitment is created on the platform.
- Either party may withdraw from a draft Deal Card at any time before both parties have confirmed it.
- Withdrawing a draft Deal Card is planned to be free of charge.
- Because no payment has been made at this stage, no refund is involved.
3. Changes after confirmation
Once both parties have confirmed a Deal Card, its terms are locked. Any change to the price, the item or service, the delivery conditions, or the completion criteria is expected to require a fresh confirmation from both the buyer and the seller.
This is a deliberate design choice: it is intended to prevent one party from quietly altering the terms of a transaction after the other has committed. If the parties cannot agree on a change, the Deal Card either proceeds on its original terms or the parties may use the mutual cancellation flow described below.
4. Cancellation after a payment is secured
After the buyer's payment has been secured, cancellation is planned to work through a mutual cancellation flow inside the app:
- Either party requests cancellation from the Deal Card screen.
- The other party is notified and asked to accept or decline the request.
- If both parties agree, the secured payment is expected to be returned to the buyer through the supported payment rails.
Return timelines depend on the payment partners, card networks and banks involved. The indicative timelines in section 7 are planning estimates only; we cannot commit to fixed timelines, because the final rails and partner arrangements are still being determined.
If one party requests cancellation and the other declines, the transaction does not simply stall: either party may use the Raise Issue flow described in section 6, which routes the matter into our planned review process.
5. The release flow
Release is the step where the secured payment moves to the seller. In the planned flow, release is expected to happen in one of two ways:
- Buyer approval. The buyer confirms in the app that the agreed item or service has been received as described, and the payment is released to the seller.
- Agreed conditions. Where the Deal Card specifies objective completion conditions (for example, a delivery confirmation window agreed by both parties), release is planned to follow those conditions as recorded on the Deal Card.
Once a payment has been released to the seller, it is no longer within the protected flow. Any refund after release would be a matter between the buyer and the seller, supported where appropriate by our Dispute Resolution Policy and applicable law.
6. Raise Issue: pausing the release flow
If something goes wrong, the item does not arrive, it is materially different from what was agreed, or the parties disagree about whether the conditions were met, either party will be able to use the Raise Issue option on the Deal Card.
Raising an issue is planned to pause the normal release flow while the matter is reviewed. During this pause, the secured payment is neither released to the seller nor returned to the buyer until the review process reaches an outcome. The steps, timelines and evidence expectations for that review are set out in our Dispute Resolution Policy.
7. Refund method and timelines
Where a refund is due to the buyer, it is planned to be returned to the same payment method used to make the original payment, wherever the underlying rails support this. Where the original method cannot receive a refund, an alternative method may be used in line with the rules of our payment partners and applicable law.
The timelines below are indicative banking estimates commonly seen in India. They are planning references only and do not represent a commitment by Nodal Pay; actual timelines will depend on the payment partners, networks and banks involved once the platform launches.
| Original payment method | Indicative return window (after refund is initiated) |
|---|---|
| UPI | Typically 1 to 5 working days |
| Debit or credit card | Typically 5 to 10 working days |
| Net banking | Typically 3 to 7 working days |
If a refund appears delayed beyond these windows, we plan to provide a way to check its status in the app and through our support channel listed in section 10.
8. Fees on cancellation
We are still finalising whether any platform fee applies when a secured transaction is cancelled, and how third party payment charges (such as gateway fees) are treated on cancellation. A clear fee schedule will be published before launch and referenced from this policy.
Our working principles for that schedule are:
- Withdrawing before confirmation should remain free.
- Any fee on post payment cancellation should be disclosed in the app before the buyer pays, not discovered afterwards.
- Third party charges that we cannot recover from payment partners may be passed on only where disclosed in advance and permitted by applicable law.
9. Exclusions: off platform payments
This policy applies only to payments made through the Nodal Pay flow. If a buyer and seller meet on the platform but pay each other directly, by bank transfer, cash, UPI outside the app, or any other off platform method, that payment is outside the protected flow, and we will not be able to pause, return or release it.
Requests to move payment off the platform are a common pattern in payment fraud. Our Acceptable Use Policy addresses this in more detail, and the app is being designed to warn users when off platform payment is suggested in a Safe Deal Room conversation.
10. Contact
Questions about this draft policy can be sent to [SUPPORT EMAIL]. For complaints and escalation, please see our Grievance Redressal Policy. Once the app launches, refund status and cancellation requests are planned to be handled primarily inside the app, with our Help Centre as a supporting resource.
This document is a pre launch draft. It will be reviewed by qualified legal counsel and finalised, and the effective version will be published at this address before Nodal Pay becomes available to users.