The 'payto' URI scheme for payments

This document defines the 'payto' Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme for designating transfer form data for payments. In particular, it always identifies the target of a payment. A 'payto' URL consists of a payment target type, a target identifier and optional parameters such as an amount or a payment reference. The interpretation of the target identifier is defined by the payment target type, and typically represents either a bank account or an (unsettled) transaction. A unified URI scheme for all payment target types allows applications to offer user interactions with URIs that represent payment targets, simplifying the introduction of new payment systems and applications.

This document uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) of .

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The authority component of a payment URI identifies the payment target type. The payment target types are defined in the "Payment Target Types" registry, see . The path component of the URI identifies the target for a payment as interpreted by the respective payment target type. The query component of the URI can provide additional parameters for a payment. Every payment method SHOULD accept the options defined in generic-opt. The default operation of applications that invoke a URI with the payto scheme SHOULD be to launch an application (if available) associated with the payment target type that can initiate a payment. If multiple handlers are registered for the same payment target type, the user SHOULD be able to choose which application to launch. This allows users with multiple bank accounts (each accessed the respective bank's banking application) to choose which account to pay with. An application SHOULD allow dereferencing a payto URI even if the payment target type of that URI is not registered in the "Payment Target Types" registry. Details of the payment MUST be taken from the path and options given in the URI. The user SHOULD be allowed to modify these details before confirming a payment.

Applications MUST accept URIs with options in any order. The "amount" option MUST only occur at most once. Other options MAY be allowed multiple times, with further restrictions depending on the payment method. The following options SHOULD be understood by every payment method. amount: The amount to transfer, including currency information if applicable. The format MUST be:

The unit value MUST be smaller than 2^53. If present, the fraction MUST consist of no more than 8 decimal digits. The use of commas is optional for readability and they MUST be ignored. receiver-name: Name of the entity that receives the payment (creditor). sender-name: Name of the entity that makes the payment (debtor). message: A short message to identify the purpose of the payment, which MAY be subject to lossy conversions (for example, due to character set encoding limitations). instruction: A short message giving instructions to the recipient, which MUST NOT be subject to lossy conversions. Character set limitations allowed for such instructions depend on the payment method.

Various payment systems use restricted character sets. An application that processes 'payto' URIs MUST convert characters that are not allowed by the respective payment systems into allowable character using either an encoding or a replacement table. This conversion process MAY be lossy, except for the instruction field. To avoid special encoding rules for the payment target identifier, the userinfo component is disallowed in payto URIs. Instead, the payment target identifier is given as an option, where encoding rules are uniform for all options.

Interactive applications handling the payto URI scheme MUST NOT initiate any financial transactions without prior review and confirmation from the user, and MUST take measures to prevent clickjacking . Unless a payto URI is received over a trusted, authenticated channel, a user might not be able to identify the target of a payment. In particular due to homographs , a payment target type SHOULD NOT use human-readable names in combination with unicode in the target account specification, as it could give the user the illusion of being able to identify the target account from the URL. To avoid unnecessary data collection, payment target types SHOULD NOT include personally identifying information about the sender of a payment that is not essential for an application to conduct a payment.

The "payto" URI scheme is already registered in the "Provisional URI Schemes" registry. Scheme name: payto Status: provisional URI scheme syntax: See . URI scheme semantics: See . Applications/protocols that use this scheme name: payto URIs are mainly used by financial software, as well as by interactive applications (e.g. email clients, chat applications) that detect payto URIs and allow the user to interact with them (e.g. make them clickable) Contact: grothoff@gnu.org Change controller: grothoff@gnu.org References: See References section of this document.

This document defines a registry for payment methods. The name of the registry is "Payment Target Types". The registry shall record for each entry: Name: The name of the payment target type (case insensitive ASCII string, restricted to alphanumeric characters, dots and dashes) Description: A description of the payment target type, including the semantics of the path in the URI if applicable. Example: At least one example URI to illustrate the payment target type. Contact: The contact information of a person to contact for further information References: Optionally, references describing the payment method (such as an RFC) and method-specific options, or references describing the payment system underlying the payment target type. The registration policy for this registry is "First Come First Served", as described in . When requesting new entries, careful consideration of the following criteria is strongly advised: The proposed registry entry contains all mandatory information. The description clearly defines the syntax and semantics of the payment target and optional parameters if applicable. Relevant references are provided if they are available. The chosen name is appropriate for the payment target type, does not conflict with well-known payment systems, and avoids potential to confuse users. The payment system underlying the payment target type is not fundamentally incompatible with the general options (such as positive decimal amounts) in this specification. The payment target type is not a vendor-specific version of a payment target type that could be described more generally by a vendor-neutral payment target type. The specification of the new payment target type remains within the scope of payment transfer form data. In particular specifying complete invoices is not in scope. Neither are processing instructions to the payment processor or bank beyond a simple payment. The payment target and the options do not contain the payment sender's account details.

Name: ach Description: Automated Clearing House. The path consist of two components, the routing number and the account number. Example: payto://ach/122000661/1234 Contact: N/A References:

Name: bic Description: Business Identifier Code. The path consist of just a BIC. This is used for wire transfers between banks. The registry for BICs is provided by SWIFT. The path does not allow specifying a bank account number. Example: payto://bic/SOGEDEFFXXX Contact: N/A References:

Name: iban Description: International Bank Account Number (IBAN). Generally the IBAN allows to unambiguously derive the the associated Business Identifier Code (BIC). However, some legacy applications process payments to the same IBAN differently based on the specified BIC. Thus the path can either consist of a single component (the IBAN) or two components (BIC and IBAN). Example: payto://iban/DE75512108001245126199 payto://iban/SOGEDEFFXXX/DE75512108001245126199 Contact: N/A References:

Name: upi Description: Unified Payment Interface. The path is an account alias. The amount and receiver-name options are mandatory for this payment target. Example: payto://upi/alice@example.com?receiver-name=Alice&amount=INR:200 Contact: N/A References:

Name: bitcoin Description: Bitcoin protocol. The path is a "bitcoinaddress" as per . Example: payto://bitcoin/12A1MyfXbW6RhdRAZEqofac5jCQQjwEPBu Contact: N/A References:

Name: ilp Description: Interledger protocol. The path is an ILP address as per . Example: payto://ilp/g.acme.bob Contact: N/A References: