The Field Guide to Global Payments

by Sophia Goldberg

The payments industry is complex and quickly changing. From the origins of card-based transactions, to the vast world of digital wallets, to the emerging land of decentralized finance and cryptocurrencies, it can be hard to know where to start as a consumer or merchant better looking to understand how money moves in the twenty-first century.

In The Field Guide to Global Payments, payments industry veteran and entrepreneur Sophia Goldberg offers a smart, compressive course on payments, covering the evolution of the industry, surveying the current global payments landscape, and looking forward into emerging payment technologies.
The payments industry underpins the entire modern globalized economy. It’s hard for someone starting off to know what they don’t know. With this book, readers will finally have access to a high-level overview of this crucial but complex space. This is a book for anyone who is either interested in payments or in a role that touches payments – that could be an accounting team who processes payments, someone starting a job within a payments company or payments team, business owners looking to better understand funds flow and subscriptions models from a payments perspective, or executives who want to learn more about the mechanics of where much of their revenue literally comes from.

In this day and age, payments should no longer be an afterthought for any merchant or organization. It’s time to dig in and really understand the players and networks through which our money runs.

Genres: Finance, Business, Nonfiction, Banking, Technology

208 pages, Paperback

Published June 6, 2022

Reviews

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I needed both a refresher and an update. I worked with payments already, but it was a few years ago.
The book is well-structured, and I consider it a decent primer, BUT I have two issues with it:
* ZERO visualizations, diagrams: this is not acceptable in 2022 - even if you think you understand something, graphs will help to confirm the mental model you're building in your head is correct
* The author goes for breadth, not depth - my expectations were slightly different here; I think you can find 75% of the content of this book in the blog posts on the open Internet

If you need a primer to payments, if you don't mind going through text only - you may like this book. Otherwise, look somewhere else.

[Woflmao · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an introductory level overview of payment systems. It is consists of four chapters, dealing in turn with credit cards, non-card payment methods, (breaking) rules and business models.
Overall, the exposition is rather superficial, maybe suited for a first-year business student or a journalist beginning to write about finance. Personally, I was hoping for more details, especially on the software side of payments. The chapter on credit cards is the best in my view, as it is still more detailed than the other ones, and at least provides a lot of references and keywords to continue one's own studies. For future editions it might be a good idea to split the book up into a series of small handbooks (e.g. one for each chapter) and provide more technical details in every one of them.

[Artem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately, the book met my expectations and gave me a sufficient overview of the modern payment landscape. I had several years of experience with payment systems before, so I only wanted to catch up in areas I was not directly involved in and learn more exciting things. Besides, I was interested in learning about more than just card payments. I would say the book accomplished that task well.

As a downside, I noticed that some explanations in the book were not very clear. I made notes in several places to understand more or research a particular topic. I could imagine that for somebody completely new to the payments world, the book may not give the needed level of explanations on certain topics.

[Vlad Bezden · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too Dry

The book needs more organization and clarity as concepts are repeated in several places, and the author frequently uses abbreviations without explaining their meaning. It would have been helpful if the book had included more visual aids like diagrams or pictures to illustrate the concepts better. I was surprised to find a book without pictures or diagrams.

If you want to understand payment systems, I recommend reading "The Anatomy of the Swipe." It is well-structured, includes many diagrams, and is easy to read.

I barely finished reading this book, and there is no way I will read it or use it as a reference again.

[Benjamin H Marks · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent primer for anyone interested in payments

I’ve had the pleasure of working with a payments savant over the past couple of years, and he has drip-fed me my understanding of this complex space over that time. I would confidently say that after two years I confidently understand about 10-20%.

Given the above disclaimer, I’d say the author has provided sufficient instruction for anyone wishing to get into this world - or especially those already dealing with payments and wanting to better understand why things are the way they are. This will be required reading for anyone coming into my company going forward.

[Sarah Siggelakis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd recommend this book for anyone in a related part of the banking and finance industry who's looking to get more into payments or alternatively for someone coming into the industry cold, I'd recommend waiting until you've been in the industry 3 months or have taken a few deep dive courses before picking this up. This book is super well written but if you don't know at least some of the jargon or understand how a payment flow works you're going to be overwhelmed.

I'm really excited to see how this book ages. This should be a good one for me to come back to every 5 years to see how much has changed

[Paul Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An excellent primer to the global payments industry, especially for Americans who live in a card-centric environment to understand the dominant models in different countries. My only critique is that there are a number of places where the same information is repeated effectively verbatim, both within a chapter and across chapters, in part due to different authors in different chapters. The reading experience would have improved from a tighter pre-publication review.

[Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Field guide

Absolutely a field guide, and certainly not a reference manual. Great for an overview of payments infrastructure and the industry, but still missing some things like ISO 20022 messaging, correspondent banking, and DNS networks’ impact on processing among banks in the B2B section.

[George Guimarães · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's quick reading but very informative. It's a must for anyone dealing with the payment industry or anyone who wants to understand how that world works in real life.

My complaint: some terms are not defined and used, like PSD2.

A minor editorial oversight, a '(check)' has slipped through. It's a minor detail.

[Ashwitha Shetty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for a book to refresh my knowledge on fintech, and this one definitely delivered. It's one of the few books that explain these complex topics in a way that's easy to grasp. I learned a lot about different areas of fintech, making it a valuable resource for anyone starting their journey in this field. However, I felt the coverage of B2B payments could be more comprehensive

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best comprehensive work on payments I have read as of now.

Beware that this book is targeted more towards an „intermediary“ knowledge level, presupposing some existing knowledge about payments

[Santosh Soni · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Introduction to some of the payments types used globally. Though not in depth as it’s just and introduction but yeah, good if your searching for a book on payments and want to get basics knowledge.

[Niels Vistisen · Rating 3 out of 5]

the book covers a lot of ground and is a good introduction to the world of payments. However, the writing did not flow as well as I would have liked and some of the sections left me wondering what their point was.

[Anbarasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introductory reading to understand the different payment methods and how the payments landscape works from a high level.

[P JC · Rating 2 out of 5]

was not thrilled

I was excited about this book wince they are far and few between but found it was really more focused on card payments and not as much on global payments. It definitely got into more detail on the card side but stuck to generalities on the non-card payment side. As an example, there was only reference to CHIPS payments.

[Sean McQuay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid overview of the modern payments ecosystem. Highly recommend this for anyone working in any payment-adjacent role. I wish I had this book a decade ago.

[Sunil Rajasekar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very easy read and a must read if you are interested in learning how payments work e2e.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful framework to put into perspective many concepts I’ve learned elsewhere.

[Ven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick intro to payments

A quick, high level overview of the payment industry, payment methods and how they work. A great intro to understand these areas

[Guðmundur Guðmundsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is exactly what it says on the cover. Good overview and helpful definitions of key terms.

[Ericka Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really informative and mostly good info but not all of it was completely accurate.

[Paolo Tormon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good introductory material to the world of payments. I find the writing style offputting because it sounds much like a transcript of a presentation. Nevertheless, I learned a lot and am happy that I stumbled on this book.

[ee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insightful, but basic knowledge. If you studied corporate finance and or corporate financial law, this is a skip

[Celene Choo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to the world of payments. The core concepts are explained in a manner that makes them easy to understand and retain. Such a stimulating read; I really enjoyed my learning journey with this book.

[Mtendere Horea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it! Gave great insights, examples and made concepts which I thought were harder to understand in the past easier. Definitely an encyclopedia for payments. Payments is an ever changing topic with innovation, growth and development taking place in the financial industry.