Open Payment Infrastructure

The neutral standard payments are built on.

Fabric is an open, non-profit foundation governing the interoperability layer between banks, acquirers, and digital payment systems — built on cryptographic standards, owned by no one.

ISO 20022 Aligned standard
Open Spec & source
Non-profit Governed foundation
Free To use & integrate
Interoperability first
Any bank, any wallet, any acquirer — the standard works across all of them without proprietary lock-in.
Cryptographic trust
Every payment flow is verifiable end-to-end. No trust assumptions. No black boxes.
Built to last
No venture capital, no exit, no pivot. The foundation exists solely to maintain the standard.
Choose your path

Who are you in this ecosystem?

Fabric standards serve every participant in the payments landscape — not just the transaction endpoints. Find your role and see what the standards offer you.

FPSF-SS-001 · Stablecoin Stack

How a Stablecoin Stack payment actually works.

Four steps. No proprietary network in the middle. Every party can independently verify every step.

01
Request creation
The merchant generates a signed payment request object — a structured message specifying amount, currency, receiver identity, and expiry.
Merchant-side
02
Payer authorisation
The payer's bank or wallet receives the request, presents it to the user, and collects authorisation via the institution's own authentication flow.
Bank or wallet
03
Cryptographic proof
The authorising institution issues a signed payment proof — independently verifiable by the merchant, acquirer, or any auditor without calling home.
Open verification
04
Settlement
Settlement happens over existing interbank rails. Fabric governs the messaging layer — not the money movement. Banks keep their role.
Existing rails
Read the full SS-001 specification →
FPSF-CPP-001 · CashPack

Digital cash that works like physical cash.

Every digital payment today exposes the sender, receiver, amount, and timestamp to the network — by design. CashPack changes that. It defines a signed, transferable digital instrument — the cash-pack — that passes between parties without each transfer being recorded by the Operator.

Structurally analogous to physical banknotes: the Operator sees who locked funds and who redeemed them. The intermediate chain is visible only to its participants — with cryptographic verification at every step and a tamper-evident audit trail available to authorised investigators.

Infrastructure-agnostic Works with core banking, tokenized deposits, permissioned ledgers, or public blockchains — the Operator chooses.
Privacy with compliance Intermediate transfers stay private. Authorised investigators retain access to a tamper-evident audit trail.
Bearer instrument model Generalises to vouchers, gift instruments, tokenized deposits, digital securities, and bearer bonds.
Cash-pack lifecycle
Lock (identiy bound)
Principal asks the Operator to lock a specific amount. A signed cash-pack is issued, addressed to the first recipient's public key.
Invisible Transfer 1
All intermediate hops are private.
Invisible Transfer 1
All intermediate hops are private.
...
Redeem
The final holder presents the instrument to the Operator. Cryptographic chain is verified, funds are released.
CPP-1.0 · DRAFT · Apache 2.0
About the foundation

Not a product. Infrastructure.

The Fabric Payment Standards Foundation is a neutral, non-profit organisation that governs the open payment messaging standard. It was created by its member institutions — not by a startup looking to own a network.

No company owns the standard. No vendor controls it. The specification is public, the reference implementation is open source, and anyone can integrate, audit, or extend it.

Governance decisions are made by the member council. The foundation's only mandate is to keep the standard open, stable, and interoperable — for as long as it takes.

How we work
  • 01Infrastructure, not products
  • 02Neutral before innovative
  • 03Clarity over persuasion
  • 04Built to last, not to trend
  • 05Trust, earned — not assumed
Join the effort

Open standards need open communities.

Fabric is shaped by the people and institutions that use it. There are several ways to participate — from reading a draft to shaping the next version of the spec.

Core contributors

People who build the standard.

View all contributors →

Want to contribute?

The standard is built in the open. Whether you're fixing a typo in the spec or proposing a new message type, contributions of all sizes are welcome.

Sponsors & members

Institutions that fund open infrastructure.

The foundation is funded entirely by its member institutions and sponsors — no advertising, no data monetisation, no external investors. Sponsorship is how open payment infrastructure stays independent.

Become a sponsor or member

Membership gives your organisation a seat at the governance table, early access to spec drafts, and attribution across foundation materials. Sponsorship starts at any level.

Membership info Support the foundation
Foundation resources

Everything in one place