Roadmap/PaymentArchitectureWG/ScopeProposal

Scope

The scope of work supports the following elements of a basic purchase triggered by user interaction ("payer") with a merchant application ("payee"), as described in Web Payments Use Cases 1.0:

• Registration by the payer of payment instruments for different payment schemes (e.g. a credit card, electronic cash, cryptocurrency, etc.) available to the payer and accepted by the payee.
• Creation of a Payment Request. The agreement between the payee and payer on the terms of the payment including elements such as the accepted schemes, price, currency, recurrence, transaction type (purchase, refund etc.).
• Discovery of available payment instruments that can be used (as defined in the Payment Request).
• Payer selection of a payment instrument and processing of the payment (either by the browser or via hand-off to another context).
• Delivery of a proof of payment generated either by the payer or payee payment provider (depends on whether the payment is payee or payer initiated).

• REMOVED: Delivery of a digital receipt from the payee to the payer.

For more information about roles involved in this payment flow (payer, payee, account provider, etc.), please see the Web Payments Interest Group's glossary.

The group will also address exceptions that may occur during these steps, including payment authorization failure.

The scope is expected to increase over time to support a wider variety of ecommerce scenarios; loyalty programs and coupons; peer-to-peer payments; and harmonization of user experience in-browser, in-app, and in-store. For more information, see the Payments Use Cases published by the W3C Web Payments Interest Group.