Automated Teller Machine. Enables customer to be able to
perform financial transactions without the need for a human cashier. For mobile money,
the ATM machine can be considered as an automated agent, allowing withdrawals and some
case deposits from and to the customer’s wallet.
A person or business that is contracted to facilitate
transactions for users. The most important of these are cash-in and cash-out (i.e.
loading value into the mobile money system, and then converting it back to cash
again); in many instances, agents register new customers too.
An API Service comprises of a URI which when combined with
a HTTP Operation (GET, PATCH, POST) enables a specified operation to be conducted on a
specific resource or set of resources.
In computer programming, an application programming
interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software
applications. An API expresses a software component in terms of its operations,
inputs, outputs, and underlying types.
Confirms the identity of the entity that is requesting the
service by verifying supplied credential(s). In this document, the requesting entity
is typically referred to as the initiator or sender.
Authorisation provides an authenticated identity with
access to the system resources/services to which they are entitled. In the context of
this document, the requesting entity (initiator) is provided with a defined set of
services and functions that they can perform over API.
Describes an entity such as a public limited or limited
company that uses mobile money as a service. This includes taking bill payments,
making bill payments and disbursing salaries.
Acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the
foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. HTTP is the protocol to
exchange or transfer hypertext.
Acronym for JavaScript Object Notation. Used to transmit
data objects containing attribute/value pairs. One of two protocols (the other being
XML) considered as the basis for a Data Exchange format for mobile money API
harmonisation.
Describes a non-business entity such as a charity or
government department that uses mobile money as a service. This includes taking bill
payments, making bill payments and disbursing salaries.
A resource is the target for an API operation as identified
in the API request. Resources are conceptually different from the representations that
are returned to the client.
In computing, Representational State Transfer (REST) is the
software architectural style adopted by many organisations that offer APIs. REST
stipulates that interacting systems exhibit the following characteristics:
Client-Server. Responsibilities between clients and servers are explicitly defined.
Stateless. No context is stored between client and server during communication.
Cacheable. As on the World Wide Web, clients and intermediaries can cache responses
Layered System. A client cannot ordinarily tell whether it is connected directly to
the end server, or to an intermediary along the way. Uniform Interface. A uniform
interface simplifies and decouples the architecture, which enables each part to evolve
independently.
Acronym for Uniform Resource Identifier. The URI is a
string of characters used to identify a resource (such as an account, for example). In
APIs a URI is represented in the form of a URL which is generally used to identify the
service to invoke.
Term used in this document to describe the store of value
that identities (customers, agents, merchants and businesses) use to store e-Money. In
general, the document uses the term Account in place of Wallet.
