Who owns what

Each participant owns its own part of a payment.

You (payment provider) — own the customer relationship, the authorization (you sign the payment request), the UX, and, per payment, which settlement operators may deliver it, by identity
Atum — checks each request, collects price quotes and selects one, verifies the delivery, and signs the release or the refund; applies the settlement-operator list you put on the request, and credential-type and issuer trust from its own list
Settlement operators — own liquidity and pricing, deposit the payer’s funds in the settlement vault, and pay the recipient

Responsibility matrix

	You	Atum	Settlement operator
Onboard customers	✅ Own your customers and business relationship	—	—
Verify identity	✅ Maintain your credentials	✅ Verify attached credentials against Atum’s issuer list	✅ Maintain your credentials
Choose settlement operators	✅ Optional per-payment allow/deny by identity	✅ Apply those constraints	—
Authorize payment	✅ Create and sign the request	—	—
Check the request	—	✅ Validate it and apply policy	—
Price the payment	—	✅ Collect quotes and select one	✅ Send price quotes for the corridors it serves
Move the funds	—	—	✅ Deposit in the settlement vault, pay the recipient
Verify delivery	—	✅ Check the payout, then sign the release or the refund	—
Track status	—	✅ Status APIs	✅ Report its progress
Reconcile	✅ Reconcile against your ledgers	—	✅ Reconcile its settlements
Operate infrastructure	✅ Your apps, keys, environments	✅ Network services and monitoring	✅ Settlement agent, keys, wallets

These require correct behavior from both sides:

Compliance — Atum verifies attached identity credentials at the gateway; you onboard participants accurately and keep credentials current.
Asset identifiers — Atum publishes chain defaults; you must use the correct asset identifiers for each corridor
Async settlement — Atum reports a slow payment as pending; you collect the outcome by re-attempting the same purchase (or, out of band, reading /status by payment_id)
Testnet vs mainnet — Atum hosts the Payment Gateway; you bring accounts, tokens, and funding

Network participants — who plays each role
What is Atum ID? — Known to Atum vs credentials you bring
Policy enforcement — identity lists you set vs credential-type trust Atum applies
Know Your Agent — who is answerable when software spends
Atum payment lifecycle — the five stages end to end
Payment Gateway API — the API boundary