Interledger FoundationThinking about applying for the Interledger Fellowship?
It supports researchers, builders, and advocates working to improve how money moves across networks and expand access to digital financial services.
Applications close June 15.
Open Payments is an open API standard designed to make that easier by enabling payments across wallets, banks, and mobile money platforms through a single integration.
Join Open Payments Learning Month with Bibi Souza to explore the API, learn from the community, ask questions, and discover what's being built with Open Payments.
📅 June 4
⏰ 2pm WAT | 6am PST | 8am COT
🔗 https://meet.google.com/fcb-xamx-csr
#OpenPayments #Interledger #OpenSource #DigitalPayments #FinancialInclusion
Developer experience matters.
The Interledger Foundation's SDK Grant Program is supporting projects that improve the broader API ecosystem through enhanced OpenAPI security automation, GNAP support, and Arazzo workflow capabilities in Kiota.
Congratulations to grantees Henry Andrews, Chris Wood, and Vincent Biret.
Read more about the projects and their impact on open standards and interoperable systems:
https://interledger.org/news/sdk-grant-funds-security-features-openapi-specification-and-arazzo-workflow-support-kiota
SDK Grant funds security features in OpenAPI Specification and Arazzo workflow support in Kiota
The Interledger Foundation awarded its first SDK Grants to improve OpenAPI, Arazzo, and Kiota support for secure API automation and SDK generation. The funded projects add GNAP security support and Arazzo workflow capabilities, helping developers build safer, more automated API integrations.
🚀 Applications are now open for the Open Payments Accelerator.
Early-stage founders and developers can receive up to $50K in non-dilutive funding and technical mentorship to build interoperable financial services that expand financial access.
Open Payments brings interoperability to digital payments, similar to how email works across providers.
One open standard. One API flow. Fewer custom integrations.
Join our free 30-Day Open Payments Learning Month starting June 1 ↓
Rob PegoraroMy growing retired-transit-card collection
A year ago, this week’s work trip to the Bay Area would have meant breaking out the oldest computer that I was still using with any regularity at the time: the Clipper card that I bought in June of 2012 to pay for fares on BART, Muni and other transit agencies around San Francisco.
But this year, I could leave that NFC-enabled smart card in the little holder in which I store my other stored-value transit cards and instead tap my phone to pay with my business credit card for each ride–first a SamTrans bus from SFO to Millbrae, then Caltrain to San Jose for TechEx North America, then two days of commuting up and down the peninsula for Google I/O.
BART started accepting contactless payments last August, and now all the Bay Area transit services that accept Clipper cards also let you tap to pay with a phone, a smartwatch or a credit or debit card with an NFC chip.
Whether you call it “tap to pay,” “open payments” or “open loop,” letting people pay for a fare as if it were any other on-the-go purchase is a great advance for transit. Especially for out-of-towners, as I realized years ago when visiting Chicago and Portland and appreciating the early lead of their transit services in this key bit of CX.
A growing array of agencies across the U.S. have finally wised up to this after years of requiring people to buy proprietary stored-value cards, install agency-specific apps or make a throwback cash payment: Metro, NYC’s MTA, the T in Boston, NJ Transit buses and light rail, SEPTA around Philadelphia, MARTA in Atlanta, and the Seattle region’s Sound Transit, among many others.
L.A.’s Metro has been a high-profile laggard–a personally inconvenient one since my TAP card expired last year. But this week users have begun reporting success on Reddit and in Bluesky posts with using their phones and credit cards to cover train and bus fares now that Metro there seems to have begun a soft launch of what it calls “TAP Plus.”
As I’ve spent down the balance on transit cards I no longer need, the ones that I still need to use are now most entirely confined to agencies in other countries. Some examples: I love Barcelona’s Metro but I don’t love how it doesn’t support tap to pay; Doha’s driverless metro is a technological marvel but also requires its own colorful card; Vancouver’s Compass Card offers enough of a discount over tap-to-pay rates (because that city didn’t follow Toronto’s fare-neutral example) that I picked up one for last year’s Web Summit conference there and used it again for this year’s event.
But there is one awkward exception right in my neighborhood: Arlington Transit, which continues to require the SmarTrip card that WMATA rolled out in 1999. So while I can pay for Metro like it’s the 21st century, I still have to keep my well-worn SmarTrip card handy in case an ART bus rolls up before a Metro bus does.
#ApplePay #ArlingtonTransit #ARTBus #BART #Caltrain #CharlieCard #ClipperCard #GoogleWallet #MBTA #Metro #NFCPayments #openLoop #openPayments #SmarTrip #tapToPay #TheT #transit #transitApps #transitCards
Payments are still fragmented. Open Payments is the open standard built to change that.
Join Open Payments Learning Month: 30 days of free, hands-on learning for developers and fintech founders.
Starts June 1 ↓
https://insights.interledger.org/open-payments-learning
📣 Join us for the May Interledger Community Call tomorrow (May 13)!
Our monthly community calls are a space to connect, learn, and explore what’s next for open payments.
Dr Christian Grothoff will present @Taler, a free software payment system designed to enable fast, efficient transactions while supporting strong privacy and socially responsible financial policies—without relying on blockchain.
Calling developers and open source contributors 👩💻👨💻
The Open Payments SDK Grant funds projects improving developer tooling, API standards, and SDK generation.
💰 $5K–$50K available
Universities are where the next breakthroughs in payments begin 🎓
Interledger on Campus supports student clubs with up to $5,000 to run hackathons, workshops, and hands-on projects in open payments.
👉 Learn more & apply: https://interledger.org/grant/education/on-campus
