The Pay Off: How Changing the Way We Pay Changes Everything by Gottfried Leibbrandt & Natasha De Teran

I work in banking (as a security specialist, mind you) and even I do not always understand the intricacies of our payment systems, especially at the macro level. In Europe, we have a myriad of involved parties: the SWIFT network, payment schemes (e.g. SEPA or Single Euro Payments Area), card schemes (e.g. Visa, Mastercard et al), ... And what about popular payment providers such as Apple or Google Pay, Paypal, Klarna, Adyen, etc. How the hell do they even work?

Enter, The Pay Off: How Changing the Way We Pay Changes Everything. The book explains in layman's terms how payments work, and how these systems look like across history and across geographies.

Below you can find the table of contents of the book, it gives you an idea of topics that are covered (including short chapters on the rise of cryptocurrencies and CBDC's)

PART I: MOVING MONEY
1.What’s a payment, anyway?
2.If money doesn’t move, how does it make the world go round?
3.Not so simple: the fundamental challenges of payment
PART II: HISTORY
4.The enigma of cash
5.The war on cash
6.Fantastic plastic: the advent of cards
7.The mother of invention: advances in card technology
8.Minting plastic: from credit to debit cards
PART III: GEOGRAPHY
9.Prisoners of geography: why our payment habits are national
10.Starting from scratch: how payments went mobile in China and Kenya
11.Incredible India: the instant payment revolution
PART IV: ECONOMICS
12.Paying to pay: the hidden costs of payments
13.Making money by moving money: who profits from payments?
PART V: BIG MONEY
14.How to steal a billion: fraud and theft
15.Invisible plumbing: the mechanics behind payments
16.How to move a trillion (or why we need central banks)
17.If money never moves, how do you send it abroad?
PART VI: THE TECH REVOLUTION
18.Crashing the party: challenging the role of banks
19.Cashing in on cards: the rise of the acquirers
20.Live now, pay later: the allure of invisibility
21.The new oil? The importance of data
22.In code we trust: meeting the cryptocurrencies
23.BigTech and banks enter the fray
24.Crypto for grown-ups: central banks go digital
25.Open access or closed loops: how payment networks compete for customers
PART VII: POLITICS AND REGULATION
26.Who’s running the show? Rules and regulators
27.Europe gets a phone number: how EU regulators reshaped payments
28.How payments became weaponised
29.Follow the money: payment trails and the fight against financial crime
30.No way to pay: excluded from the payment system

For Belgian readers active in the space, Febelfin Academy hosts an in-depth training course "Qualified Payments Expert" which is well worth your time (and money).