Card checkout settles T+3 and nobody has used the word reserve — is that what this is?

A client runs the card-to-crypto checkout at a certain volume. Card charges clear same day on the customer's statement; the crypto lands three business days later, consistently.

Nobody at the gateway has used the word reserve, and there is nothing in the terms about one that I can find. Is a fixed T+3 simply how the rail settles, or is that a rolling reserve that has not been named?

Asking because the two answers have very different implications for what happens if the account is closed.

They are different things and the distinction is the one that matters to you, so it is worth being precise.

A settlement delay is the rail's own clock; the money is in transit and it is yours. A rolling reserve is a percentage of each day's volume withheld for a defined period against future chargebacks; that money is not in transit, it is held, and it is released on a schedule that only exists if somebody wrote it down.

A fixed three-day lag on the full amount is much more likely to be the former. A reserve almost never applies to one hundred per cent of settlement — it is typically five to ten per cent held for six months, with the rest paying on the normal cycle. If your client receives the whole amount three days later, that is a clock, not a reserve.

The part I would actually chase: what happens to in-flight settlement on account closure. That is where the two converge into the same bad outcome, and it is usually one sentence rather than a section.

if they don't call it a reserve they can change it on a tuesday. that's the whole answer

Data rather than theory. Same product since 2024, and my settlement lag has been:

Period	Lag
2024 H1	T+1
2024 H2	T+2
2025 to date	T+3

Same account, same category, no notification at either change. So it is a clock, and it is a clock somebody adjusts.

What volume is a certain volume. The answer is different at 5k and at 200k.

three days of your money in their account, every day, forever. call it what you like.

He has not come back, which is normal for this account. Answering anyway for whoever finds it later: T+3 on the card rail is standard and it is not a reserve. Ask about closure, not about the lag.

Agreed, though I note we have now told an absent person the right answer, which is a fair description of most of what this section does.