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Interledger opens funding round for live payments launching on open infrastructure

Wednesday, November 11, 2026 — 18:01:23 (UTC)

Interledger Foundation Opens Funding Round for Providers Launching Live Payment Services on Open Infrastructure

With Accounts and Instant Payments Now Common in Markets Like Colombia, $350,000 Awards Will Fund Services That Let Money Move Between Providers

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (November 19, 2026) – The Interledger Foundation, the nonprofit building and advocating for an open, interoperable payments network, is opening a new round of funding for financial service providers ready to launch live payment services on open payments infrastructure. The Digital Financial Services grant will support projects that work across borders and within providers’ own markets. The Foundation will award $350,000 per recipient to implement its open-source payments technology and run it with real customers. The funding comes as instant payments systems across Latin America reset how quickly people expect money to move and raise the bar for what payments can do.

The funding is part of a broader conversation Interledger Foundation has started about what comes next once people have bank accounts and instant payments, and how money can move freely between the providers they already use. That conversation began in Colombia through Beyond Access, an initiative and series of events bringing together organizations already using Interledger technology to make payments work across providers.

Colombia shows both how far payments have come and how far they still have to go. In its first year, Bre-B, the instant payments system run by Colombia’s central bank, processed more than 1.7 billion transactions, and in April 2026 the government enacted Decree 0368 of 2026, moving the country from a closed banking model to a full Open Finance framework. Similar shifts are underway across Latin America, where Brazil’s Pix handled nearly 80 billion transactions in 2025. Yet while more than 96% of Colombian adults hold a deposit account, cash still makes up 66% of everyday transactions, and people fall back on it whenever money moves between platforms. With those foundations in place, the opportunity now lies in the services built on top of them.

The Foundation made Colombia a priority market for its work in Latin America in April to solve that gap. Since then, its work there has taken it from the Fintech Builders Lab in Bogotá to the Open Payments Hackathon in Medellín, and this funding round carries that work into its next stage. The round is open to providers worldwide, with particular interest in projects that strengthen participation in Colombia, the wider Americas and across multiple markets where new payments connections create value.

Each funding recipient will build on the Foundation’s open-source technology, which links payment systems the way the internet links computer networks. A bank, cooperative or wallet using it can send and receive payments with other providers without sharing the same ledger or currency and without depending on a single vendor. The organizations already building on Interledger technology show what those services look like:

Wages that reach families across borders. miPlata works with U.S. employers to pay Latino workers who have never held a bank account directly into a digital account, replacing paper checks and cash and giving workers a faster way to send money to family at home. The company already connects to Colombia’s Bre-B, Mexico’s SPEI and Brazil’s Pix instant payment systems. Selling across borders without changing how customers pay. Wava, a Colombian payments company, is building a payment corridor between Peru and Colombia. They are working to create a system where a customer in Peru pays with a local payment method, and the merchant receives Colombian pesos through a domestic payment system, with Open Payments connecting the two without either system having to change. Essential services that people pay for as they use them. InterPay Network is building a pay-as-you-use payment model that lets people pay for connectivity and energy in small amounts as they consume them, instead of committing to subscriptions or upfront purchases that do not match how their income arrives.

These projects are part of the more than $21 million the Foundation has invested in over 200 projects across 42 countries, including its work with People’s Clearinghouse to route U.S.-to-Mexico remittances directly into accounts at 140 rural and Indigenous community banks. That work extends well beyond the Americas, from powering microloans for community-based financial institutions in Uganda to streamlining remittances for a major bank in Pakistan.

The Foundation is looking for credit unions, cooperatives, remittance companies, digital wallets and other regulated or regulation-ready providers that know exactly which payment problem they want to solve and are ready to test the answer with real customers. Alongside funding, each recipient will work with the Foundation’s program and technical leads for 18 months, and the lessons from each project will be shared so other institutions can follow the same path.

“Instant payments have changed what people expect from money in markets around the world, but once money needs to move between providers or across a border, much of that progress stalls,” said Chris Lawrence, Chief Program Officer at the Interledger Foundation. “We are funding providers that already know their customers and their markets, so they can launch new services on open infrastructure and prove with real transactions that payments can reach further, at home and across borders, without depending on a single vendor.”

Applications for the first stage are open through December 11, 2026, on the Interledger Foundation website, and shortlisted organizations will be invited to submit a full proposal in early 2027.

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About the Interledger Foundation

Interledger Foundation builds and advocates for an open, interoperable payment network where transactions are not limited to a particular bank, mobile money provider, or location. The organization works to increase access to digital financial services for the 1.3 billion people worldwide who are currently excluded from traditional banking systems through the Interledger Protocol (ILP). The organization works with partners to integrate its ILP into existing and emerging financial and payments infrastructures. It currently has large-scale projects underway with Wallet Guru, People’s Clearinghouse, and miPlata.

Learn more at: www.interledger.org

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Source: Company press release.

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