# Payment participants

To understand Ripple Payments, it’s important to know the participants involved:

![Ripple Payments Participants](/assets/payment-participants.a7830e37a9ffcd5db43965d3d72b0fe819a667aa851ddf187707713f5cee739b.dad6d009.svg)

* The **originator** is a customer of an institution who wants to send a payment and who funds the payment through that institution.
* The **sender** (or **sending institution**) initiates a payment in Ripple Payments through their RippleNet instance. It holds one or more RippleNet accounts from which it can send payments to RippleNet accounts held by other institutions.
* The **intermediaries** (or **intermediary institutions**) are the RippleNet instances at institutions that facilitate payments from the sender to the receiver.
* The **receiver** (or **receiving institution**) is a partner institution that is connected to the sender. It has one or more RippleNet accounts into which it can receive payments.
* The **beneficiary** is a customer of the receiver who receives the end payment from the receiver.


 

Note
There are numerous variables in this chain of payment participants. For example, a payment might have no **originator** or **beneficiary**, but is simply a payment between RippleNet institutions. And in the case of Internal Treasury transfers, where the payment is a transfer between two accounts owned by a single institution on RippleNet, the **sender** and **receiver** are the same entity.