The Case for Open Standards
In an industry dominated by proprietary lock-in, we made a deliberate choice to build Magnitude on open standards. This decision was not easy, but it was right.
Open standards create ecosystems. Proprietary systems create dependencies.
When payment infrastructure is built on closed, proprietary technology, merchants become trapped. Migration costs skyrocket, and innovation stalls. The Open Payments Foundation has been instrumental in pushing the industry toward interoperability.
Our Technical Stack
We chose open protocols and formats wherever possible: REST and GraphQL APIs, OAuth 2.0 for authentication, and ISO 20022 for financial messaging. These are not trendy choices — they are battle-tested standards used by central banks and major financial institutions worldwide.
Interoperability by Design
Every integration point in Magnitude follows published specifications. Our webhooks use standard HTTP callbacks with HMAC signatures. Our SDKs wrap well-documented REST endpoints. Nothing is magic — everything is inspectable. This philosophy aligns with the API design principles that Google has championed.
The measure of a good API is not how clever it is, but how quickly a developer can go from reading the docs to shipping their first integration.
Community and Contribution
We publish our API schemas, contribute to open-source payment libraries, and participate in standards bodies. The PCI Security Standards Council sets the security baseline that we build upon and exceed.
The Long Game
Open standards are a long-term bet. They require more upfront investment in documentation, testing, and backward compatibility. But they pay dividends in developer trust, ecosystem growth, and resilience against vendor lock-in.
Looking Ahead
We believe the future of payments is open, composable, and developer-first. We are building Magnitude to be the platform we wished existed when we were integrating payments ourselves.
