The mission of the Web Payments Working Group, part of the Web Payments Activity, is to make payments easier and more secure on the Web. See the goals below and the charter for more information.

Deliverables

• A Web Payments Overview describes the Web Payments Working Group view of its work.
• The Working Group has formally published a Recommendation-track document for in-browser payments:
  • Payment Request API: This specification describes a web API to allow merchants (i.e., web sites selling physical or digital goods) to easily accept payments from different payment methods with minimal integration. User agents (e.g. browsers) will facilitate the payment flow between merchant and user. The Working Group also published a Payment Request API FAQ.
• The Working Group has also published these supporting specifications:
  • Payment Method Identifiers: This Recommendation-track document defines payment method identifier strings so that components in the payment ecosystem can determine which parties support which payment methods.
  • Basic Card Payment: This specification describes the data formats used by the Payment Request API to support payment by payment cards such as credit or debit cards. The Working Group intends for this specification to become a W3C Note.
• The Working Group has also formally published two specifications for out-of-browser payments:
  • Web Payments HTTP API 1.0 and Web Payments HTTP Messages 1.0 which describe how to initiate payments outside of a browser.
• The Working Group has taken up additional work but not yet published these formally:
  • Payment App API: This specification third party payment apps to the Payment Request API ecosystem. It defines how users register payment apps with user agents, how user agents support the display of information about payment options the user can select to handle the payment request, how the user selects a payment app, and how communication takes place between user agents and payment apps to fulfill the requirements of the underlying Payment Request API. This specification is being developed within the Payment Apps Task Force.
  • Basic Credit Transfer Payment: This specification describes the data formats used by the Payment Request API to support payment by credit transfers (e.g., via SEPA, BACS, ACH, CHAPS, etc.).
  • See additional proposals not yet taken up by the WG.
• The Working Group is developing a test suite; see the July 2016 presentation on testing strategy.

Experimentation and Implementation

• See Developer Information for Payment Request API

Goals

The Web Payments WG is committed to deliver technical specifications that cover three main areas:

1. a set of messages that can be used to accomplish a payment,
2. message flows for the initiation and, where scheme-permitting, confirmation or completion of a payment, and
3. an Application Programming Interface (API) to allow Web applications to participate in these flows.

Improved interoperability between payer and payee systems will offer a number of benefits:

• A better checkout experience for users, particularly on mobile devices. The standards should facilitate automation, one approach to improving the user experience.
• Streamlined payment flow, which is expected to reduce the percentage of transactions abandoned prior to completion ("shopping cart abandonment").
• Easier adoption of payment instrument improvements (e.g., related to security) or new payment instruments.
• Added value through machine-readable digital payment requests and payment responses.

How the Working Group Works

Working Group participants hold regular meetings, for which proceedings are public. The Working Group uses Github to manage the majority of the group's activity, notably for specifications, issues, and actions. However, a small number of actions are at times recorded in the W3C action tracking tool. Read more about how the Working Group works.