Open financial protocol for programmable payments, operators, wallets, settlement, and certification.
BANZA is a protocol-first, open financial infrastructure layer for wallet-native payments, transfers, settlement, traceability, and certified operators. It defines the rules — financial invariants, open contracts, certification criteria, and a federation/trust model — that any operator can implement to build certified payment infrastructure without reinventing financial primitives.
BANZA is a specification, not a product: it does not process payments, hold funds, or belong to any operator.
| Repository | Role |
|---|---|
banza-protocol/banza |
Open financial protocol — specifications, schemas, contracts, certification framework, and conformance suite |
banza-protocol/banzami |
First commercial operator / payment network built on BANZA (reference Rust core and client SDKs) |
banza-protocol/banzai |
AI-native knowledge, validation, certification, and governance layer for BANZA |
banza-protocol/.github |
Organization profile and public metadata |
BANZA is the protocol. Banzami is one operator built on it. BanzAI is the AI knowledge/certification layer. Operators implement BANZA — Banzami operates on top of BANZA.
- A protocol specification — wallet model, transfer protocol, QR payments, ledger, settlement, traceability, and operator rules.
- Open contracts and schemas — OpenAPI, webhook schemas, QR payload, and event/federation contracts.
- A conformance suite — deterministic certification, levels L0–L4, for operators.
- A trust and federation model — a PKI hierarchy, operator certificates, and inter-operator routing.
- An AI-assisted knowledge layer — through BanzAI, for validation, onboarding, certification guidance, and documentation navigation.
Reference implementations — a Rust financial core and client SDKs (TypeScript, Flutter/Dart, and others) — live in the reference operator (banzami), demonstrating conformance. BANZA itself is contract-first: any language or stack that satisfies the contracts and passes the conformance suite is a valid implementation. There is no mandated SDK, language, or infrastructure.
- A commercial payment app.
- A bank.
- A money transmitter.
- A closed, proprietary platform.
- A single operator.
- Banzami itself.
Banzami is only one operator built on BANZA. If every operator stopped tomorrow, BANZA — its rules, contracts, invariants, certification criteria, and federation model — would remain fully valid and available to any new operator.
BANZA is built around six non-negotiable financial properties — enforced by the protocol, verified by the conformance suite, regardless of implementation technology:
| Family | Guarantee |
|---|---|
INV-LEDGER-* |
Double-entry, immutability, integer precision, atomic postings |
INV-WALLET-* |
No negative balance; balances are always ledger-derived |
INV-SETTLE-* |
gross = net + fee — no money creation; settlement amount identity |
INV-IDEM-* |
The same idempotency key always produces the same result |
INV-RECON-* |
Posting linkage; externally reconcilable |
INV-QR-* |
Unique resolution; single-use dynamic QR; expiry enforcement |
Operators implement the BANZA protocol and get certified at one of five levels — verified by a deterministic conformance suite, never by self-declaration:
| Level | Name |
|---|---|
| L0 | Protocol Sandbox |
| L1 | Core Payment Capability |
| L2 | Payment Initiation Capability |
| L3 | Inter-Operator Interoperability |
| L4 | External Interoperability |
L3 opens federation: certified operators route payments to one another without bilateral agreements. The BANZA CA issues certificates; BanzAI explains the criteria but never certifies.
Run the conformance suite against your operator using the tools in banza-protocol/banza.
BANZA is open source. Contributions are welcome in:
- The protocol specification (RFCs, ADRs)
- The open contracts and schemas
- The conformance suite
- The documentation
- BanzAI protocol knowledge and validation workflows
See the contributing guides in each repository to get started.
banzami.org — public documentation for the BANZA ecosystem, including protocol documentation, operator registry, developer resources, and Banzami operator information.
Contact: contact@banzami.org