Is payment name resolution the same as Microsoft PNRP?

No. PNRP is the Peer Name Resolution Protocol, a 2000s-era IPv6 peer-to-peer name system unrelated to payments. Payment name resolution resolves a name to a payment endpoint, not a network peer.

Is it the same as confirmation of payee?

No. Confirmation of payee checks whether a name matches an account and returns yes or no to prevent fraud. Payment name resolution returns where and how to pay — the rail and endpoint to execute the payment.

DNS://Money / Payment name resolution

What is payment name resolution?

Q: What is payment name resolution?

It is turning a human-readable name (like pay:yourname) into the executable instructions needed to send money: the rail, address, routing, and an ISO 20022 hint. DNS://Money does this so senders and AI agents never handle raw account numbers.

Direct answer

Payment name resolution turns a human-readable name like pay:yourname into the executable instructions needed to send money: the rail, address, routing, and an ISO 20022 hint. DNS://Money does it so a person or AI agent pays a name instead of a raw account number.

Last updated September 6, 2026

Two terms it collides with

Microsoft's Peer Name Resolution Protocol (PNRP) is a 2000s IPv6 peer-to-peer name system with no connection to payments. Confirmation of payee is the bank check that matches a name to an account and returns yes or no to catch fraud. Payment name resolution returns where and how to pay: the rail and endpoint to execute on.

How does it work?

A name is queried. A sender or agent asks the protocol to resolve pay:vendor.alpha.
An instruction is returned. The protocol responds with rail, address, routing, fee estimate, and an ISO 20022 hint, everything needed to pay.
The rail is selected by fixed rules from the name's endpoints and the asset requested. XRPL and RLUSD settle today; x402 payments run on five networks.
The payment settles on that rail from the payer's own wallet, and DNS://Money records it.

Why it matters for AI agents

Autonomous agents can't paste wallet addresses or remember routing numbers. They resolve a stable name into a payment instruction at transaction time, on whichever rail the name supports. AP2, A2A, and x402 leave that step out; payment name resolution supplies it. Before paying, an agent can also buy a signed screen of the counterparty (OFAC plus resolution) and verify the signature in its own process.

Has it run live?

Yes. On 2026-03-13, two AI systems resolved pay: names and paid each other on XRPL mainnet, autonomously and on-chain. View the genesis transaction →

Related terms

pay:: The namespace for payment names, e.g. pay:agent.compute.
FAS-1 (Financial Address Standard): The open spec defining how a pay: name resolves to a payment endpoint.
rail: A settlement network a resolved name can point to. XRPL and RLUSD settle today; x402 payments run on XRPL, Base, Solana, Algorand and X Layer.

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