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The OwnPay Companion App is an Android application that bridges your Android phone with your self-hosted OwnPay instance. Its sole SMS-related purpose is forwarding incoming payment confirmation SMS (for example, mobile money receipts from bKash, Nagad, Rocket, Upay) to OwnPay for automatic transaction verification.
The companion app ONLY reads INCOMING SMS messages that contain payment transaction confirmations.
  • It does NOT read, forward, or process outgoing, sent, or draft SMS.
  • It does NOT read or process OTP messages, verification codes, or 2FA codes from other services.
  • It does NOT read or process personal messages, promotional SMS, or any other non-payment SMS.
  • It applies a privacy filter on-device: only SMS that match known payment receipt patterns are forwarded to your OwnPay server. All other SMS are silently ignored and never leave the device.
The companion app is not available on Google Play. Download the APK directly from the OwnPay GitHub releases page.

What the app does

  • Receives incoming payment SMS - Listens for incoming SMS and applies a privacy filter that only passes through payment confirmation messages (mobile money receipts, bank transfer confirmations)
  • Forwards to OwnPay - Sends only the filtered payment SMS content to your instance via the Mobile API. All non-payment SMS never leave the device
  • Sends heartbeats - Periodic pings so OwnPay knows the device is online
  • Receives push commands - Accepts remote instructions from the admin panel
The app has no access to outgoing, sent, or draft messages. It cannot read OTP codes, personal conversations, or any SMS other than incoming payment confirmations.

Install and pair

1
Download the latest ownpay-companion-v0.2.0.apk from the GitHub releases page and install it on your Android device. You may need to enable Install from unknown sources in your device settings.
2
Open the app and enter your OwnPay instance URL (for example, https://pay.yourdomain.com) and the Mobile API key generated from Devices.
3
Tap Pair Device. The app sends a registration request and displays a confirmation screen with the assigned device name.
4
Back in the OwnPay admin panel, go to Mobile > Devices and confirm the device appears with an Online status.

Permission requirements

The companion app requires the following Android permissions:
Without the battery optimization exemption, Android may aggressively terminate the companion app’s background service, causing missed SMS and heartbeat timeouts. Always whitelist the app in your device’s battery settings.

Heartbeat mechanism

The app sends a heartbeat to your OwnPay instance every 60 seconds. If OwnPay does not receive a heartbeat within 10 minutes, the device status changes to Offline in the admin panel. See Devices for health monitoring details.

Troubleshooting pairing

  • Devices - Manage paired devices and monitor health
  • SMS Templates - Configure regex patterns for SMS verification
  • SMS Center - View incoming payment SMS logs and outbound notification queue
Last modified on August 25, 2026