Views and Opinions about the World of Payments

Curious about what payments professionals were reading last year? Here are the top books ranked by sales made through our Payments News Book Store on Amazon.com:

1. Payments Systems in the U.S. – A Guide for the Payments Professional
   

   Written by Carol Coye Benson and Scott Loftesness of Glenbrook Partners, this book provides a comprehensive description of the systems – (cards, checks, cash, ACH, etc.) that move money between and among consumers and enterprises in the U.S. In clear and lively writing, the authors explain what they systems are, how they work, who uses them, who provides them, who profits from them and how they are changing. Anyone working in the payments industry – or needing to use payments products – can benefit from understanding this.

2. Bank 2.0: How Customer Behavior and Technology Will Change the Future of Financial Services
   

   The financial crisis is just beginning for retail institutions. Ninety to ninety-five per cent of bank transactions are executed electronically today. The Internet, ATMs, call centres and smartphones have become mainstream for customers. But banks still classify these as alternative channels and maintain an organisation structure where Branch dominates thinking. Continued technology innovations, Web 2.0, social networking, app phones and mobility are also stretching traditional banking models to the limit. BANK 2.0 reveals why customer behaviour is so rapidly changing, how branches will evolve, why cheques are disappearing, and why your mobile phone will replace your wallet all within the next 10 years.

3. Paying with Plastic: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing
   

   More than a history book, Paying with Plastic delivers an entertaining discussion of the impact of an industry that epitomizes the notion of two-sided markets: those in which two or more customer groups receive value only if all sides are actively engaged. The authors, both of whom have researched the industry for more than 25 years, also examine the implications of the recent antitrust cases on the industry as well as other business and technological changes — including the massive consolidation brought about by bank mergers, the rise of the debit card, and the emergence of e-commerce — that could alter the payment card industry dramatically in the years to come.

4. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
   

   Business Model Generation is a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow’s enterprises. If your organization needs to adapt to harsh new realities, but you don’t yet have a strategy that will get you out in front of your competitors, you need Business Model Generation. Co-created by 470 “Business Model Canvas” practitioners from 45 countries, the book features a beautiful, highly visual, 4-color design that takes powerful strategic ideas and tools, and makes them easy to implement in your organization.

5. The SmartPhone Wallet: Understanding the Disruption Ahead
   

   Do you use a mobile phone? — Do you use credit cards or debit cards? If so, you need to know that a revolution has started that will impact you sooner than you think, and this book will tell you – the consumer – what you need to know now. The reality is that a torrent of advertising and promotional marketing is heading your way to try to convince you to use new services on your SmartPhone at retail stores. Perhaps you have already seen some, or signed up for some. These new services may seem novel, but this revolution is far more significant than that.

6. Priceless: The Case that Brought Down the Visa/MasterCard Bank Cartel
   

   In a ground-breaking case that shook the business and legal worlds to their very cores, New York-based law firm Constantine & Partners sought to end a devastating credit monopoly that personally touched millions of consumers. Its efforts culminated in the largest federal antitrust settlement in U.S. history. In Priceless, author and lead counsel Lloyd Constantine relates the dramatic account of backroom strategizing and courtroom conniving during the high-stakes litigation. Constantine, who led the team representing the plaintiffs, vividly describes how the case pitted retailers against credit card companies, and pries the lid off dodgy debit card practices. The plaintiffs, including Wal-Mart, Sears Roebuck, The Limited, Safeway, and a class of five million stores, pitted their financial futures against Visa and Mastercard in this war between giants.

7. Moving Money: The Future of Consumer Payments
   

   Once we paid for things with bills, coins, or checks. Today we pay with zeroes and ones—digital entries on credit and debit cards, or electronic messages sent over the Internet. In Moving Money, distinguished analysts explore this trend, its development and likely future, and the ramifications of this transformation. This is a book about money as a medium of exchange—in the past, in the present, but particularly in the future. What forms has money taken over the years? Moreover, how have those means of payment changed in recent years, and how will they develop in the future? And what (if anything) should policymakers do to facilitate those changes, or at least allow them to develop and mature? Brookings economists Robert E. Litan and Martin Neil Baily and a distinguished group of experts dissect these issues and peer into the future of consumer payments.

8. The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth
   

   When Peter Thiel and Max Levchin launched an online payment website in 1999, they hoped their service could improve the lives of millions around the globe. But when their start-up, PayPal, survived the dot.com crash only to find itself besieged by unimaginable challenges, that dream threatened to become a nightmare. PayPal’s history – as told by former insider Eric Jackson – is an engrossing study of human struggle and perseverance against overwhelming odds. The entrepreneurs that Thiel and Levchin recruited to overhaul world currency markets first had to face some of the greatest trials ever thrown at a Silicon Valley company before they could make internet history.

Have you recently read another title of interest to payments professionals? Share your suggestion in the comments below.

Note: We receive a small affiliate fee paid by Amazon.com from purchases made through the Payments News Book Store.

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