FAQ
Last updated
Last updated
The Request Network is a built on Ethereum for creating payment requests. It is maintained by the Request Network Foundation. Request Finance is a commercial (centralized) application that interacts with the Request Network protocol. It is a product of the Request Labs company. The Request Finance API is the backend of the Request Finance application. It is an abstraction over the Request Network protocol for easy but centralized access. It's the fastest way to integrate Request into your product.
Request Finance API - Benefits
Simple REST API, familiar to web developers
No key management
Faster response time
Notifications on new requests and received payments
Sends invoices to users based on their email instead of their ETH address
Easy to build applications on top of the Request Network with OAuth
The easy choice for encrypted data on the network
Request Finance API - Disadvantages
Not fully decentralized
Users need a Request Finance account to connect
Invoices created with the production environment are persisted on the Gnosis Chain.
Invoices created on the sandbox environment are persisted on Goerli.
The Request Network protocol is all about creating payment requests. They are stored on-chain: data is stored on IPFS, and the document hash is persisted on-chain.
Invoices are what you will be manipulating with the Request Finance API. Invoices are simply an implementation of requests with a predefined schema for their content. Invoices are used by the Request Finance application as a way to practically represent general invoicing data.
To summarize:
Schema
contentData
can be any object
contentData represents an invoice, the schema is validated by the API
Automation
X
✔
Recurrence
X
✔
With the Request Finance API, everything that is stored on-chain is encrypted on the network (Gnosis Chain + IPFS) and invoices cannot be made public. Access is limited to the counterparties and the Request Finance team.
Although we technically have access to invoice data, we will never use or share this data.
The following rate limits apply globally:
Unauthenticated users: 500 calls / hour
Authenticated users: 5000 calls / hour
Additionally, there are some endpoints that have stricter rate limiting. The API always returns the following information in the headers:
X-Rate-Limit-Limit
: the rate limit ceiling for that given endpoint
X-Rate-Limit-Remaining
: the number of requests left for that given endpoint
X-Rate-Limit-Reset
: the remaining time window before the rate limit resets, in seconds
We also send a Retry-After
in the header on blocked requests to let you know when to call the endpoint again.
Teams integrating Request Network can build Request Finance-based POCs. To do this, you need to know your public key and add a snippet to invite users to share a request with you (see below).
Once the transaction is persisted, a POST query is sent to the webhook URL. The JSON payload contains the requestId. It only works if the user keeps the page open during the process.
In case of an error, the call is attempted 2 more times.
Here's what it looks like to the end user of your application:
Invoices are stored on the blockchain: data is stored on IPFS, and the document hash is persisted on-chain – .
The Request Finance API adds a layer of automation on top of simple requests. Whenever an invoice is created, it is possible to have an email sent to the designated payer. The invoice issuer (payee) can also get notified as soon as the corresponding request has been paid (please if you need access to this API feature).
Knowing if a request has been paid . But invoices have an additional property: a status; so knowing if the underlying request has been paid is as easy as reading this property. Invoices can also be scheduled to create occurrences at regular intervals. This is useful to manage collaborators' salaries.
If end-to-end encryption is paramount for your usage, we recommend you interact directly with the Request Network protocol through the instead of using the Request Finance API. You won't be able however to interact with invoices stored on.
Applications using : 15000 calls / hour
The list of currencies accepted by our API is here:
The network list is available here:
Alternatively, please refer to for a readable format of the currencies and networks supported.
Source: