Paya

Borderless payment infrastructure powered by Stellar — send, receive, save, and manage money globally in seconds, for a fraction of a cent.

Paya is built for freelancers, gig workers, businesses, and underserved communities. It leverages Stellar's ultra-fast settlement, negligible fees, native USDC, and Soroban smart contracts to make financial access truly global.

The Problem

Cross-border payments — especially across Africa — are still slow, expensive, and exclusionary. Sending money between neighbouring countries can take days, pass through multiple intermediaries, and lose a significant percentage to fees. Freelancers wait weeks for international wires, small businesses bleed revenue to middlemen, and communities saving together fall back on informal systems with little transparency or security.

Over 1.4 billion adults remain underbanked — yet nearly everyone has a mobile device. Paya removes these barriers using Stellar's decentralized rails to deliver fast, low-cost, globally accessible payments and savings.

✨ Features

• 📊 Personal Finance Dashboard — a real-time, auto-categorized view of every transaction in your Stellar wallet (payments, subscriptions, swaps, escrow, savings, payouts, DEX trades), indexed via Horizon.
• 🔁 Trustless Subscription Billing — recurring payments enforced by Soroban contracts. No intermediary, no chargebacks, fully auditable; subscribers can audit, pause, or cancel from their wallet.
• 🤝 Gig Worker Payments & Escrow — milestone-based escrow funded in USDC or XLM that releases the moment work is confirmed, settling in seconds for near-zero fees.
• 👥 Group Savings & Split Vaults — collaborative savings on Stellar multi-signature accounts, where withdrawals require multi-party approval — a transparent, secure alternative to informal thrift systems.

⭐ Why Stellar

Paya is built on Stellar because it's one of the most payment-optimized networks in production:

• 3–5 second finality — payments settle almost instantly
• ~0.00001 XLM per operation — negligible transaction fees
• Native USDC — stable-value payments without volatility
• Soroban smart contracts — secure Rust-based contract infrastructure
• Built-in DEX (SDEX/AMM) — seamless on-chain asset swaps
• Multi-signature accounts — ideal for secure collaborative vaults
• Inclusive by design — engineered for remittances and global financial access

Soroban Contracts

Contract	Purpose
paya-subscription	Recurring billing with configurable intervals & cancellation
paya-escrow	Milestone-based escrow and payment release
paya-group-vault	Multi-signature collaborative savings & split payments

🛠 Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Blockchain	Stellar (Mainnet & Testnet)
Smart Contracts	Soroban (Rust / WASM)
Stable Payments	USDC on Stellar
SDK	@stellar/stellar-sdk
Frontend	React 18, TypeScript, Next.js
Wallet	Freighter
Indexing	Stellar Horizon API
Vault Security	Stellar Multi-Signature Accounts

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• Rust + Stellar CLI (for Soroban contracts)
• Freighter browser wallet
• Stellar Testnet access (accounts auto-funded via Friendbot)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/<your-org>/paya.git
cd paya

# Frontend
cd frontend && npm install && cp .env.example .env   # set network = testnet
npm run dev

# Contracts
cd ../contract
stellar contract build
stellar contract deploy --wasm target/wasm32-unknown-unknown/release/paya_escrow.wasm --network testnet

🧩 Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Paya Frontend                     │
│        React + TypeScript + Next.js + Freighter         │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────┘
                         │
          ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
          │              │              │
    ┌─────▼──────┐ ┌─────▼──────┐ ┌─────▼──────────┐
    │  Horizon   │ │  Soroban   │ │  Stellar DEX   │
    │    API     │ │    RPC     │ │   (SDEX/AMM)   │
    │ (tx index) │ │(contracts) │ │  (asset swaps) │
    └─────┬──────┘ └─────┬──────┘ └────────────────┘
          │              │
    ┌─────▼──────────────▼─────────────────────┐
    │             Stellar Network              │
    │      Mainnet / Testnet Infrastructure    │
    └──────────────────────────────────────────┘

paya/
├── frontend/     # Next.js app — wallet UI, dashboard, escrow & savings flows
├── contract/     # Soroban smart contracts (Rust)
└── README.md

🤝 Contributing

PRs welcome — the work shards cleanly into well-scoped tasks across frontend and contracts.

• Branches: feat/short-description, fix/short-description
• Commits: Conventional Commits
• Style: Prettier + ESLint for frontend (npm run lint); cargo fmt + cargo clippy for contracts
• Tests: must pass before review (npm test / cargo test)
• Good first issues are labelled — start there.

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Join the conversation on Telegram / Discord.

Vision

Paya aims to become the financial operating system for borderless work, payments, and collaborative savings — letting anyone, regardless of country or banking access, participate in the global economy securely, transparently, and instantly.