SoundCloud has announced a partnership with Canadian payouts platform Trolley to power payments made by its SoundCloud For Artists programme.
“We pay out millions of dollars to artists every month and getting this right is a responsibility that we don’t take lightly", says Stephen Shirley, SoundCloud’s Product Director for creator services. "Trolley enables SoundCloud to have confidence that royalties will be handled with the care that they deserve. Overall this builds trust between SoundCloud and the artist community which is vital to SoundCloud’s future".
SoundCloud For Artists allows independent artists to manage and monetise their music on SoundCloud itself, as well as offering the option to deliver tracks to other streaming services. The partnership with Trolley, says an official announcement, "signals a pivotal moment in shaping the future of artist payouts".
“As Trolley becomes the backbone of SoundCloud’s payouts infrastructure", Trolley CEO Tim Nixon adds, "it not only streamlines their financial workflows, but also empowers them to accomplish more for artists".
Trolley describes itself as "a cloud-based payouts platform that enables businesses to send payments across the globe, to individuals or companies, in any currency, and to all primary payment methods".
In terms of its offering to the music business, it says it "streamlines workflows in an easy-to-use, end-to-end royalty payouts platform" with "artist onboarding, identity verification, global payouts and tax compliance all in one place”.
For SoundCloud, Shirely adds, having "a solution for payouts in place" will allow the company to now "focus on how to best connect artists and fans in ways that generate more revenue for artists beyond just streaming royalties".
