Dear James, Thank you for your thoughtful response and the warm holiday wishes. Your insights into the history and intended "glue" roles of these three Digital Public Goods (DPGs) are incredibly helpful for our architectural planning.
I particularly appreciate the clarity regarding Fineract as the AMS and the Payment Hub as the gateway for asynchronous processing. Your warning regarding the Self-Service APIs is also well-noted; we will pivot our strategy away from the deprecated modules to ensure a production-ready security posture. To ensure we align with the best practices you mentioned, I have a few brief follow-up thoughts: DPG Integration Hub: I fully support the idea of a vendor-neutral space for DPG integration work. As these projects are often used in tandem for PSP implementations, having a shared knowledge base within the Fineract community would be a significant asset to the ecosystem. Technical Specifics: While I understand these details may sit outside the core Fineract focus, we are still pinning down the specific stable repositories for Payment Hub EE and the Mojaloop "central-services" required for a production environment. Upstream Alignment: We agree with your guidance on remaining downstream of the projects to ensure long-term viability. We are keen to contribute any connectors or logic we develop back to the community to prevent fragmentation. I have also received your private message and will address the more granular technical and partnership details there. Thank you again for steering us in the right direction. I look forward to our continued discussion on how to best bridge these technologies. Best regards, Robert On Wed, Dec 24, 2025 at 8:10 PM James Dailey <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Robert and Merry Christmas > > These are great questions and match the original intentions of these > projects: i.e. the three projects fit together. Unfortunately, this may > not be the right forum. > > In 2015-16, I helped with some very early design and justifications for > the Mojaloop open source project, and once that was underway, some of us > saw the need to connect it to Fineract. The result of that effort was the > PaymentHUB, which was originally conceptualized as the "glue" between > Mojaloop and Fineract backend. I volunteered many hours to help that > project get off the ground so I am grateful it continues. > > Now, each of these are DPGs (UN recognized Digital Public Goods) in their > own right, and the connectivity between the projects is there, at least in > theory. I would argue that these three coding projects, held under > different non-profits, need a way to collaborate more closely and in a > vendor neutral way. Your questions make that clear. That could be > domiciled AT the Fineract community, but currently we don't have any > information here about how to work with all of these technologies. We > currently only focus on Fineract, a headless backend banking system for > transactions, accounts, loans, products, portfolio and clients (end > customers). As Fineract APIs are notably unsupportive of asynchronous > calls, callbacks, and queueing, enter the PamentHUB. > > We could have a DPG centered community here at Apache Fineract, as long as > the projects are compatible in licensing. It would seem to fit within our > larger mission, but until now, has not been the focus. > > A couple of technical responses: > > - Please note that the Self Service APIs are "commented out" in > fineract as of release 1.12. I urge you to follow the guidance about > securing FIneract and not deploy these in a production environment without > understanding the full implications. > https://fineract.apache.org/docs/current/#_securing_fineract There > are better ways and several outside vendors are developing solutions. > - Mojaloop has undergone a number of changes and they were > contemplating a major rework of the architecture - getting to alignment > between the three projects is still a significant set of work, and > remaining downstream of these changes will be important for your long term > viability. > - You may not need Mojaloop to connect to one or two Mobile Money > providers, as PaymentHUB will handle that, but for multiple connections, > having a switch in the middle makes sense. It may also make sense if the > fee mechanisms, fraud detection, AML, etc have to be managed centrally. In > normal payment speech, Fineract is the AMS (account management system), > PaymentHUB is the paymentGateway concept, and Mojaloop is the Switch & > Payment Scheme techstack. > - Within the PaymentHUB, the use case "connect to a mobile money" > system would be done at the level of the AMS connector - that is where you > find the definition of process flows and the APIs to connect to them. In > that case, the AMS-connector to be developed is not fineract but whatever > system is being used at the Telco MMO. There may be some examples out > there - non-trivial to build for a new AMS connector and to handle all of > the edge cases. Again, we don't have that information here at Fineract. > - Fineract architecture has evolved over the past several years with > new performance enhancements, and with the creation of Progressive Loan > module. More is coming, so again, I urge you to not fork these projects, > and instead find ways to remain upstream with your changes and always > downstream of the projects themselves. > > So, in closing, if you and others think that this sort of information > should be managed here under the heading of DPG integration work, we can > discuss. But, for now, the Fineract project does not include any > information about these third party systems. If the Fineract COMMUNITY > wants to take this on, as a vendor neutral space, that's a different idea. > I think it could work, but we'd have to look at it more. > > Thanks, > > James > > > On Wed, Dec 24, 2025 at 8:07 AM Ippez Robert <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Dear Fineract Community, >> >> I am reaching out to seek guidance on deploying Apache Fineract, Payment >> Hub EE, and potentially Mojaloop for a digital financial services platform. >> Our goal is to leverage Fineract as the core banking system for accounting >> and agent management, while Payment Hub EE handles mobile money >> transactions, bill payments, and other payment services. >> >> *Use Case:* >> >> - Agents will use a mobile app to perform transactions (mobile money >> collections and disbursements, bill payments like electricity, water, >> airtime etc) and earn commissions on each transaction based on the >> transaction and commissions structures defined within Fineract >> >> - Customers will use a separate mobile app for transactions and account >> management; planning on extending the self-service module if still not >> deprecated >> >> - Integration with multiple mobile money providers (e.g., MTN, Airtel >> Money) and banks with open APIs; Can Mojaloop be used exclusively for this >> as a gateway to bridge service providers and Fineract through the Payment >> Hub EE >> >> - Agent onboarding (would consider agents as customers in Fineract), >> tiered transaction structure, and commission management ( Is there an API >> already in existence we can use to manage transaction tiers and commissions >> structures) >> >> *Questions and Requests:* >> >> *1. Deployment Guidance:* >> - For Payment Hub EE, which specific repositories should we clone >> from (link unavailable)? (e.g., ph-ee, ph-ee-connector, ph-ee-gateway) >> >> - For Mojaloop, which repositories are essential for deploying a >> payment hub with multiple providers (e.g., mojaloop, >> mojaloop-specification, central-services)? >> >> - What are the recommended steps for setting up a production-ready >> environment for Fineract, Payment Hub EE, and Mojaloop? >> >> *2. API Extensions*: >> - Which APIs should we extend or create to support agent onboarding, >> transaction management, and commission tracking? >> >> - Are there existing APIs or connectors for integrating with mobile >> money providers and banks? >> >> *3. Frontend Development*: >> - Are there existing frontend applications (web or mobile) that we >> can leverage, or should we build new ones? >> >> - What technologies and frameworks are recommended for building the >> mobile apps? >> >> *Additional Context:* >> >> - We are familiar with Fineract's earlier stages but are looking for >> guidance on the latest technologies and best practices. >> >> - Our goal is to build a scalable and secure platform similar to existing >> digital financial services platforms in our region basically Payment >> Service Providers. >> >> Any guidance, recommendations, or pointers to relevant documentation >> would be greatly appreciated. We are eager to contribute to the community >> and share our experiences as we progress. >> >> Thank you for your time and assistance. Merry Christmas and Happy New >> Year 2026 >> >> Best regards, >> Robert >> >
