FamGateway
Is FamGateway Secure? — API Security Architecture
When dealing with payments, security is the top priority. Traditional gateways require extensive KYC because they take custody of your money before settling it to your bank days later. FamGateway flips this model entirely.
Zero Custody of Funds
The most important security feature of FamGateway is that we never touch your money. When a user scans the dynamic UPI QR code, the funds are transferred directly from their bank account to your FamPay UPI ID via the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) network.
Read-Only IMAP Parsing
To verify that a payment was successful, FamGateway asks you to connect a Gmail account (via an App Password). We use the IMAP protocol in a strictly read-only manner.
1. App Passwords instead of Main Passwords
We mandate the use of Google App Passwords. This means you never give us your actual Gmail password. Furthermore, an App Password can be instantly revoked by you at any time from your Google Dashboard, immediately cutting off our access.
2. Scoped Email Searching
Our background daemon does not download your entire inbox. It runs specific IMAP search queries to only fetch unread emails sent by alerts@fampay.in with the subject line matching payment receipts. We do not process, store, or log any other personal emails.
Protection Against Fake Payments
Because FamGateway relies on cryptographic notifications from FamPay's official email servers, users cannot "fake" a payment by showing a screenshot or spoofing a client-side network request. The API only marks an order as success if the server-side IMAP client securely fetches a valid, cryptographically signed email receipt directly from FamPay and perfectly matches the cryptographic Order ID embedded in the receipt's purpose note.