What is a Payment Intent?

Overview

A Payment Intent is a primitive based on a declarative model to describe self-contained instructions for executing a payment workflow. Each payment intent defines parameters such as the payment type, source and destination domains, amount, recipient(s), and any conditions or constraints required for automation and coordination.

You only need to declare the desired state of the payment workflow, and Paygrid computes the steps to reach that state and execute it. The declarative approach abstracts away the "how" and focuses on the "what," making payment workflow automation more intuitive.

Features:

• Programmability: Support for complex pre- and post-payment workflow hooks, including payments scheduling, conditional transfers, and other advanced logic for payment-specific scenarios.

• Chain Abstraction: A unified and seamless experience for processing cross-chain payments. Developers don't need to hold native gas tokens or figure out which bridge or route to use to settle a transfer.

• Charge-bearer Settings: Charge bearer configurations allows you to choose who covers fees, and allows partial splits. This is a flexible approach for managing processing and network fees, that can be covered by either the PSP, payer, or payee. E.g: Payers can pay their network fees using the same payment token or another payment method.

• Wallet-Agnostic: Support for custodial and non-custodial wallets including: EOAs, MPC-based wallets, Smart Contract Accounts and CEX wallets.

• Security & Delegated Authorizations: Payment Intent authorizations can be time-bound and scope-specific, with restrictions based on custom rules and permissions, eliminating unauthorized actions and fraud.

• Payment Operator Config: Operators can configure their settings for each payment intent such as treasury address, authorized delegates, revenue fees and more.

• Routing priorities: Balancing clearing and routing settlements based on context and priorities such as speed, cost, risk score and compliance, etc.

• Reconciliation: Developers can include additional metadata and external references to keep an auditable trail for compliance.

A payment intent essentially transforms a generic transaction into a full context-rich payment messaging standard similar to card networks's ISO8583 or payment schemes ISO20022 standards.