Payment methods

For ASEs

This page is a brief overview from the client developer’s perspective. If you’re implementing Open Payments at your institution, refer to Resource server for what your resource server must include in the incoming payment response and how settlement is initiated.

The payment method is the means by which the sender’s ASE will fulfill its payment obligations to the recipient’s ASE. Cash, credit/debit cards, bank transfers, gift cards and mobile money can all be considered different payment methods. Payment methods determine how settlement occurs between ASEs after Open Payments instructions have been issued.

Though Open Payments is designed to be an abstraction layer that can issue payment instructions between transacting parties atop any payment method, Interledger (ILP) is the only payment method that currently integrates with Open Payments readily.

When a client creates an incoming-payment resource, the recipient’s ASE returns a methods array describing how to address payments to that resource. The client doesn’t generate these values and doesn’t act on them directly; the sender’s ASE uses them when settling the payment.