Wesley,

Have you accepted the proposal to be the PM? If so, arrange a meeting to discuss objectives and design specs. You can supervise the Java project while Conrad ( who brought up the payments system API topic in the first place) supervises the .Net project (or port).

There are two issues / ideas - a Payment Gateway (API) and an App Store. The following lengthy comments have to do with building a Payment Gateway (Software or Service?)

What kind of license should the project go with? GPL, MIT, BSD or ...? Whoever shows up for the meetings to discuss the design specs should vote on the license to be used. Those who are absent can forever hold their peace. Alex Gakuru can explain what these licenses mean .

Will the project be software to be utilized by various Application Service Providers (meeting Banking Act physical security standards and regulations) or will it be a (Payment Gateway) service offered by one entity? Me thinks the project should be software offered to Application Service Providers (registered Legal entities). The community of developers can then provide support, installation, configuaration and maintenance services for the ASP's.

Which major financial services are running on a FOSS DB? Please note this is not a social network so before Facebook and Twitter Yuppies ...

E-Bay - Paypal uses Oracle DB Technology
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/devadathan-gopinathan-unnithan/6/650/404

Maybe Google / Oracle can help with the Java side of the project and Microsoft can contribute to the .Net side of the project. (?? $$??)

Cybersource / Authorize.Net possibly the biggest payment gateway in the USA uses MS SQL Technology. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tjay-belt/0/636/1b6

Contacted Cybersource over 15 months ago. They replied but failed to say anything about setting up a payment gateway here. All the more reason why like the Chinese, we need to build our own payment gateway software / solutions for domestic internet services.
http://www.ivanwalsh.com/2009/07/alipay-overtakes-paypal-as-the-worlds-biggest-third-party-online-payment-platform-200-million-users/

Registering a society or whatever to build this software or service MUST come into play now.
There will obviously be divisions (software and service forks) but we have to start somewhere. Market (and possibly government) forces will eventually lead to consolidation. 

Someone from VISA International could attend to educate us more about issues concerning payment gateways. How many of us use credit cards outside major sites like Amazon.com? Will we need PoS (client) software or hardware or whatever to make fraud more difficult?

There was a meeting last Saturday at the Alliance Francaise (French Cultural Center - Jardin de Paris Cafe) with PS Ndemo, Seacom, KDN and Mworia (African Pixel). The setting and timing (1.30 pm to 4.30pm) seemed quite appropriate for more serious types. Me thinks it is a great place to meet though attendees should be ready to spend something for juice or coffee.

MM