Advancing Open Payments: 2027 Digital Financial Services Grant Now Open
The Interledger Foundation is now accepting applications for the 2027 Digital Financial Services Grant, a funding opportunity for financial service providers ready to put interoperable payment infrastructure into practice.
Across many markets, digital payments still operate within separate systems that do not easily connect. This can make it harder and more costly for people and businesses to move money across providers, platforms, and borders. Through this grant, the Interledger Foundation will support organizations that are ready to implement Interledger technologies (Rhyza the evolution of Rafiki) to establish network connections and test digital financial services in real-world settings.
Funding Available
The Interledger Foundation expects to award up to three grants of USD $350,000, each supporting an 18-month implementation period.
Priority will be given to implementation-ready organizations with the technical, regulatory, operational, and organizational capacity to move from planning to real-world deployment.
The Foundation is also seeking to strengthen network participation in Colombia, the wider Americas, and across multiple markets or regions where new integrations can deliver broader interoperability and ecosystem value.
Who Should Apply?
The grant is open to regulated or regulation-ready financial service providers, including credit unions, savings cooperatives, remittance providers, community development financial institutions, digital-wallet providers, and similar organizations.
Strong applicants should demonstrate regulatory, technical, operational, and compliance readiness, a clear payment use case and target market, the ability to establish at least one peering relationship and test with real users or partners, and a credible plan for long-term sustainability.
What Can the Grant Support?
Grant funding can help make it possible to create a payment service that works with other systems, interoperably. This should include integrating our open-source software (Rhyza) that connects financial service providers to the Interledger Network, and Open Payments, an API standard that enables secure, authorized payment interactions across financial systems. Grant funding may support the technical work an FSP needs to deploy Rhyza and integrate it with their existing systems: calling Rhyza’s APIs to initiate and manage payments, handling and responding to the events Rhyza sends, and connecting Rhyza to the FSP’s identity provider so their users can authorize payments
The Grant can also support getting ready for regulations and compliance, testing the networking and settlement process, bringing on customers or partners, running real-world proof-of-concepts, and creating documentation or other resources that can help the whole ecosystem grow and adopt Interledger payments infrastructure.
More Than Funding
Grantees will receive ongoing support from the Interledger Foundation throughout the 18-month implementation period. Each project will work with program and technical leads through regular implementation reviews, technical support, and discussions focused on progress, challenges, and next steps. Grantees will also have opportunities to connect with the wider Interledger ecosystem, exchange knowledge with peers, and share lessons from implementation.
The goal of each project is to create real benefits that go beyond just its own use. It should help us better understand what’s needed to set up and maintain open payment systems in various markets. By doing this, we can make it easier for others to follow in our footsteps and create their own successful payment systems. This will help us learn what works and what doesn’t in different places, and make open payment infrastructure more widely available.
How the Application Process Works
The grant will use a two-stage application process.
Phase 1 opens Monday, November 2, 2026 and closes Friday, December 11, 2026 at 11:59 pm ET. Applicants will submit a short-form application covering their organization, proposed payment use case, target users or customers, Rafiki integration approach, technical and organizational readiness, regulatory and compliance readiness, expected outcomes, implementation approach, and indicative budget. Applications will be reviewed for strategic fit, feasibility, readiness, and potential ecosystem value.
Phase 2 is by invitation only. Applicants shortlisted from the first stage will be invited to submit a full proposal with more detailed information on their technical approach, implementation plan, budget, compliance considerations, pilot design, and long-term sustainability.
Apply for the Grant Here (opens in a new tab)
Review the Application Guidelines (opens in a new tab)
Learn more about Interledger Technology Stack
