Ledger API for Embedded Payments | Programmable Ledger

Introduction

Embedded payments allow software platforms to offer payment acceptance, money movement, and stored value directly within their applications. Building these experiences requires more than a payment processor, it requires a ledger system that tracks every balance, movement, and state change with financial-grade accuracy.

NAYA's programmable Ledger API provides the foundation for embedded payment products. Whether you are building a marketplace with seller balances, a SaaS platform with prepaid credits, or a banking-as-a-service offering, NAYA delivers the ledger infrastructure that powers reliable financial experiences.

The Problem

Building embedded payment features without purpose-built ledger infrastructure leads to significant challenges:

Balance Accuracy Issues: Storing balances in application database columns and updating them with increment/decrement operations seems simple, but at scale, race conditions, failed transactions, and timing issues create discrepancies. When a user's balance does not match reality, trust erodes.

Audit Trail Gaps: Application databases typically do not preserve complete history of every balance change. When disputes arise or auditors require documentation, reconstructing what happened and when becomes impossible.

Double-Spending Vulnerabilities: Without proper concurrency controls, simultaneous transactions can overdraw balances. Traditional database locks introduce performance bottlenecks; solving this correctly requires purpose-built ledger semantics.

Complex Multi-Party Flows: Embedded payments often involve multiple parties: buyers, sellers, platforms, and payment processors. Modeling these flows with correct debits and credits across all parties is complex without a ledger-native approach.

Reconciliation Burden: When your application ledger, payment processor, and bank accounts tell different stories, manual reconciliation becomes a constant drain on finance resources.

Compliance Requirements: Embedded payments often trigger regulatory scrutiny. Regulators expect accurate, auditable records maintained according to accounting principles, not ad-hoc database tables.

The NAYA Solution

NAYA provides a programmable Ledger API designed specifically for embedded payment use cases.

Double-Entry Accounting

Every transaction in NAYA consists of balanced debit and credit entries. This fundamental principle ensures that funds cannot be created or destroyed, only moved between accounts. Your books balance by design, not by luck.

Immutable Transaction Log

Once recorded, ledger entries cannot be modified or deleted. Corrections are made through reversing entries that preserve complete history. This immutability provides the audit trail that regulators and auditors require.

Atomic Operations

NAYA guarantees that multi-entry transactions are atomic. Either all entries are recorded, or none are. Combined with optimistic concurrency controls, this eliminates double-spending without sacrificing performance.

Flexible Account Model

Create custom account hierarchies that match your business model. User wallets, merchant settlement accounts, platform fee accounts, and reserve accounts can all be modeled within the same ledger with clear parent-child relationships.

Real-Time Queries

Access current balances and transaction history through low-latency APIs. Power user-facing balance displays, internal dashboards, and downstream system integrations with consistent, up-to-date data.

How It Works

1. Design Your Account Structure: Model your embedded payment flows as a hierarchy of ledger accounts. NAYA's flexible schema supports user accounts, merchant accounts, fee accounts, and any custom structures your product requires.

2. Integrate Payment Events: When payments occur (deposits, purchases, withdrawals, refunds), post the corresponding entries to the Ledger API. NAYA validates that entries balance and applies them atomically.

3. Query Balances and History: Use the API to power user-facing balance displays and transaction histories. The Data Hub provides the data layer for dashboards and reporting.

4. Reconcile Continuously: NAYA's reconciliation engine matches ledger activity against payment processor data and bank statements, ensuring your books stay accurate.

Key Benefits

• Financial-Grade Accuracy: Double-entry accounting principles eliminate balance discrepancies.
• Complete Audit Trail: Every entry is immutable and timestamped, providing complete history for any account.
• Developer-Friendly API: RESTful API with clear semantics makes integration straightforward for engineering teams.
• Real-Time Performance: Sub-100ms latency enables responsive user experiences and real-time balance updates.
• Flexible Modeling: Adapt the account structure to any embedded payment use case without schema changes.
• Built-in Reconciliation: Continuous matching against external systems catches discrepancies before they become problems.

Compliance & Reporting

Embedded payment products face regulatory requirements that NAYA helps address:

• Money Transmission Licensing: Accurate ledger records support state MTL applications and ongoing compliance.
• Bank Partner Requirements: Banking-as-a-service partners require auditable ledger systems from their platform customers.
• SOC 2 Compliance: Immutable records and access controls support SOC 2 certification requirements.
• Financial Reporting: Generate accurate financial statements based on ledger balances.

Integration Architecture

NAYA's Ledger API integrates with your existing payment infrastructure:

• Payment Processors: Receive webhook events from Stripe, Adyen, Plaid, or other processors and post corresponding ledger entries.
• Banking Partners: Connect with BaaS providers to record deposits, withdrawals, and account transfers.
• User Interface: Power wallet displays, transaction histories, and balance queries through the API.
• Accounting Systems: Export journal entries to your general ledger for consolidated financial reporting.

API Example

Here is a simplified example of posting a user deposit:

{
  "transaction_type": "deposit",
  "entries": [
    {
      "account_id": "user_wallet_12345",
      "direction": "credit",
      "amount": 5000,
      "currency": "USD"
    },
    {
      "account_id": "cash_clearing",
      "direction": "debit",
      "amount": 5000,
      "currency": "USD"
    }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "payment_id": "pi_abc123",
    "source": "stripe"
  }
}

This single API call atomically credits the user's wallet and debits the clearing account, maintaining balance integrity and creating a complete audit record.

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