A Stripe Connect transfer only moves money into a connected account's Stripe balance

Creating a transfer moves money from the platform balance into a connected account's Stripe balance. It does not move money to the merchant's bank. That second hop is a payout, which happens on the account's configured payout schedule, defaulting to an automatic cadence that varies by country, or explicitly through the payouts endpoint sent with the connected account header.

Marketplaces that report a merchant as paid once a transfer succeeds are therefore telling merchants money has arrived when it is still inside Stripe. Confirm by creating a transfer and comparing the connected account's balance against its payouts list. For control over timing set the payout schedule interval to manual during onboarding, remembering that switching later does not claw back funds already paid out.