Re: [webpayments] Payment Method Identifier Registry should have oversight / formal structure (#25)

I don't think there is a good case for discovery of **payment methods**. However there may be a case for the discovery of **payment apps** that support a specific payment method.

i.e. This merchant supports payment via methods A, B and C, where can I find payment apps that support those so I can make a payment?

A payment method is a protocol for executing a payment that is based on the basic request response flows we are standardizing. I expect payment methods to spring up in the millions as payment app developers design ways that they want payments to work and create a agreements with PSPs to process payments in that way. In time there will be a smaller set of widely used methods that will either be controlled by large payment networks or will be open standardised methods that are free for anyone to implement in their apps.

It's not going to be possible for someone to build an intelligent payment app that is able to go out and discover payment methods and then dynamically add support for them. That is, unless they were also able to dynamically add PSP relationships that could process payments using that method.

In some respects this is what Interledger [1] could achieve. A payment app that supports Interledger would either expect the payee to explicitly state they also support Interledger, or they would be constantly looking at the payment paths they have available to them and therefor the payment methods they have available as terminating transfers and advertise these as supported methods.

For example, a merchant may support Bitcoin and VISA debit as payment methods (and have no knowledge of Interledger). If the user has a payment app that can use Interledger to make payments it will query it's available payment paths to see if any can make the necessary Bitcoin and/or VISA debit payment to the merchant.

[1] https://interledger.org

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https://github.com/w3c/webpayments/issues/25#issuecomment-163164270