Practical
Taler is easy to integrate with existing Web applications. Payments are cryptographically secured and are confirmed within milliseconds with extremely low transaction costs.
Stable
Taler does not introduce a new currency. Taler uses a digital wallet storing coins and payment service providers with escrow accounts in existing currencies. Thus, Taler's cryptographic coins correspond to existing currencies, such as US Dollars, Euros or even Bitcoins.
Secure
By design Taler does not suffer from many classes of security problems such as phishing or counterfeit. Thanks to its security features, Taler never rejects a legitimate customer due to a fraud-detection false positive.
Taxable
When using Taler, merchant's revenue is transparent for tax collection authorities. Unlike cash and most digital currencies, Taler helps prevent black markets. Taler is not suitable for illegal activities.
Private
When you pay with Taler, your identity does not have to be revealed. Just like payments in cash, nobody else can track how you spent your electronic money. However, you obtain a legally valid proof of payment.
Libre
Taler provides protocols and reference implementations that in principle enables anybody to run their own payment infrastructure, be it individuals, organizations or whole countries. Since the reference implementation is a GNU package, it will always remain free software.
Paying with Taler
To pay with Taler, customers install an electronic wallet on their device. Before the first payment, the wallet's balance must be charged in the desired currency by some other means of payment.
Once the wallet is charged, payments on websites take only one click, are never falsely rejected by fraud detection and do not pose any risk of phishing or identity theft.
Receiving payments with Taler
To receive Taler payments, a merchant needs a bank account in the desired currency. We provide supporting software in various programming languages to make the integration painless. The merchant's backend for Taler transaction processing can run on the merchant's premises or be hosted by a third party.
Taler News
04-2017: Sva explains GNU Taler at EasterHegg and Torsten demonstrates it is child's play
"Taler" by Sva, produced by c3voc.de is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
03-2017: Sva explains GNU Taler at FOSSASIA in Singapore
"Taler" by Sva, produced by Engineers.SG is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
02-2017: Florian Dold explains Taler at 50p in Bangalore
"Taler" by Florian Dold, produced by 50p is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
1-2017: Taler Documentation pages updated
docs.taler.net is now online, providing a new portal to the Taler system documentation.
12-2016: Christian Grothoff explains Taler at hasgeek in Bangalore
"Taler" by Christian Grothoff, produced by hasgeek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
10-2016: Taler Wallet for Firefox online
We now have a first version of the Taler wallet for Firefox. For now, a development build of Firefox is required. Installation instructions are on the Wallet page.
9-2016: Taler Web Payments paper published
We just finished the camera-ready version of our paper on how to use Taler for Web payments. This paper does not discuss the cryptography behind Taler, but focuses on the practical aspects of how the wallet and the merchants interact over the Web. Hence, this paper should be a good read for anyone who wants to integrate Taler support with their Web site. We have posted the paper here.
8-2016: Taler Systems S.A. created
We now have a business entity for Taler. Potential investors may contact the executive team at clevel@taler.net.
6-2016: GNU Taler 0.0.0 released
We have reached our first big milestone, the 0.0.0 release!
The release includes implementations of a bank, exchange, merchant and wallet
and is available on the GNU FTP mirrors.
While the exchange implements the
complete protocol, the implementations of merchant and wallet are both
fundamentally incomplete and still lack key features, including important
error handling. GNU Taler still lacks an implementation of an auditor or
logic for integration with "real" banks.
Thus, this release should not yet be used for actual financial
transactions.
That said, you can already setup your own functional payment system
and run your own toy currency -- or just try out the demo using
the Chrome/Chromium browser at demo.taler.net.
Please provide feedback to our bug tracker.
There, you can also find our roadmap
which contains a list of known open issues and our plans for the near future.
12-2015: Taler Demo for Chrome/Chromium online
We finally have a first simple demo for Taler online. The Firefox-variant still needs some love, but you can start to try out the demo using the Chrome/Chromium browser at demo.taler.net. Please provide feedback to our bug tracker.
11-2015: Christian Grothoff's explains the goals behind Taler
"Taler" by Christian Grothoff, produced by Inria Rennes Bretagne Atlantique is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
2-2015: Taler becomes an official GNU package
Taler was accepted into the GNU project today. GNU will offer advice, advocacy and cooperation --- and host our official public mailinglist taler@gnu.org.
12-2014: Watch Christian Grothoff's FOSSA talk on Taler
"Taler" by Christian Grothoff, produced by FOSSA, Inria Rennes Bretagne Atlantique is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.
11-2014: Launching taler.net
Welcome to our new site about the Taler electronic payment system.
Financial News
20-07-2017: Sofortüberweisung unreasonable
The German Federal High Court of Justice has decided that
the online payment system Sofortüberweisung is
unreasonable, and thus must not be the only payment option offered
without additional fees for customers in Germany.
With GNU Taler, inexpensive instant payments that respect customers
privacy will be possible.
04-04-2017: WhatsApp to offer person-to-person payments in India
With Indian demonetization policy pushing the country towards
a cashless society, it was only a question of time until the
Big Data oligopoly would make its move to take over the country's
economy.
With GNU Taler, India would maintain digital sovereignty, and
the privacy of citizens spending digital cash would
be preserved while achiving the laudable income transparency and
anti-counterfeiting goals of the Indian government.
03-04-2017: Amazon launches Amazon Cash
Despite Amazon being in the position of being allowed to keep
your credit card on file to enable faster payments, they have
now moved to enable payments without credit cards.
With GNU Taler, cash-based payments for customers without
credit cards would be possible not only for big brands that
can sell tokens at participating retailers, but for all online
stores as GNU Taler is an open standard and not another
walled-garden lock-in payment system.
24-10-2016: Alipay gains acceptance in US and Europe
With Alipay being increasingly accepted in retail stores in US and Europe,
European banks continue to lose market share to big technology
providers.
With GNU Taler, we could establish an open standard with a level
playing field preserving the independence of national economies
by establishing a commons that protects critical infrastructure
from domination by a handful of global players.
24-10-2016: ApplePay starts in France
With ApplePay starting in France, pressure on
European banks increase as they are set to
lose market share to big technology providers.
With GNU Taler, we could establish an open standard with a level
playing field preserving the independence of national economies
by establishing a commons that protects critical infrastructure
from domination by a handful of global players.
21-10-2016: Indian banks warn 3.2 million customers
A major data breach of Indian banks forced these institutions to warn 3.2 million
customers that their accounts might have been compromised and that they need
to obtain new bank cards and PIN numbers.
With GNU Taler, banks can implement privacy by design and minimize data collection,
minimizing the impact of security breaches and satisfying GDPR regulations in Europe.
15-10-2016: Thousands of online stores found skimming
Security researchers found evidence of adversaries targeting online shops offering credit cards
to steal and resell credit card credentials.
With GNU Taler, shops would never receive sensitive personal information such as credit cards,
thus hacked online shops would not create such hassles for consumers.
23-07-2016: How banks are refusing to shoulder responsibility for fraud
Banks are naturally unhappy about shouldering the cost for fraud, and use
various tricks to impose the costs on their customers without providing
adequate help to minimize fraud.
With GNU Taler, cryptography ensures that identity theft and many related
types of fraud are no longer possible, allowing banks to offer customers
a payment experience where neither side needs to worry about fraud.
22-12-2015: Sicherheitsforscher hacken das EC-Bezahlsystem
Security researchers found serious security flaws in the German "electronic cash" system
which enable criminals to withdraw funds from merchant accounts based on the information printed
on receipts and other information obtained from public sources or point-of-sales terminals purchased
online.
The German "electronic cash" system is based on the "Poseidon" protocol, for
which there is no publicly accessible specification or reference implementation. This has allowed
such major security holes to persist for decades.
30-4-2015: 1970 Researchers Predicted Debit Cards Would be Great for Surveillance
"Suppose you were an advisor to the head of the KGB,
the Soviet Secret Police. Suppose you are given the
assignment of designing a system for the surveillance of all
citizens and visitors within the boundaries of the USSR. The
system is not to be too obtrusive or obvious. What would be
your decision?"
The think tank RAND essentially answered this question with
a blueprint for modern payment systems. Taler offers an
escape from the financial panopticon.
17-3-2015: Pointing Fingers in Apple Pay Fraud
Apple Pay may be easy to use, but the simplistic
user identification creates opportunities for fraud,
resulting in much higher fraud rates than even with traditional
credit card systems.
Taler does not require user identification, enabling
ease of use while also being effective against fraud.
6-12-2014: Visa and MasterCard's uncompetitive business practices
The Visa and MasterCard duopoly has eliminated competition among
banks, setting fees that take away a significant share of profits from
small merchants.
Taler is an open standard with free software
implementations, so merchants do not have to fear a lack of competition.
5-12-2014: PayPal for Android gains fingerprint support
Following Visa and MasterCard's move to biometrics, PayPal
now supports authenticating purchases with fingerprint
recognition.
Hence, police can now forcefully take user's fingerprints and
access their mobile computers and possibly empty their electronic wallets
in addition to their physical wallets.
For Taler, we advise users to protect their digital wallets using
passphrases.
5-12-2014: US judge rules banks can sue merchant for bad security
Merchants taking credit card data from customers now have to additionally
fear banks suing them for losses. It is not suggested that the merchant
in question was not in compliance with PCI DSS security audit procedures.
With Taler, merchants never handle sensitive personal credit data, and
thus neither customers, exchanges nor governments would even have standing to
sue merchants in court. Thus, if a merchant system were to be compromised,
the damage would be limited to the merchant's own operations.
13-11-2014: Visa and MasterCard's to move from passwords to biometrics
Visa and MasterCard are planning to "simplify hated verification
systems" by moving from passwords to security codes on mobiles
and biometrics. Continuing their flawed insistence on verifying identity,
Visa and MasterCard will thus build a very personal picture of their
customers, from shopping habbits down to their cardiac rhythm.
Taler does not require a customer's identity to verify a payment, as the
payment system cryptographically verifies the coins. Thus, Taler does
not have to intrude into any personal detail of a citizen's life, and
certainly not their private medical data.
10-9-2014: PayPal accounts hacked with a click
Yasser Ali reports a now patched vulnerability in PayPal that would
have allowed him to reset other user's passwords and take over their
accounts. This is unlikely to be the last vulnerability found in
account-based payment systems.
In Taler, customers do not have accounts with usernames, passwords
or associated e-mail addresses. Instead, Taler uses reserves which
are represented by a private key on the owner's computer. Users
create a reserve by depositing currency at a Taler exchange, and can then
withdraw digital coins from that reserve using the respective private
key. There is no limit on the number of reserves a user can have, and
even hacking the Taler exchange would not provide an adversary with access to
user's reserves (as the Taler exchange does not have the private keys).
Stealing in Taler requires breaking into each customer's computer to
extract the reserve keys or the coins from the digital wallet.
15-9-2013: NSA follows the Money
Despite the EU allowing the NSA access to financial transaction data to
track terrorists and organized crime, the NSA saw it necessary to
target international payment processors including SWIFT and Visa.
As terrorism and organized crime are covered by legal means, industrial
espionage to improve the US economy is the only remaining US national
interest within the NSA's mandate that would explain this illegal activity.
With Taler, exchanges will only learn the value of a merchant's transactions,
not who paid or for what (governments may learn what was sold). Thus,
the Taler exchange is a significantly less interesting target for industrial
espionage.