Being able to make and receive payments is an essential facet of modern life. It is integral to the banking and finance systems, and it touches all global citizens. In some areas, payment systems are rapidly evolving – moving swiftly from paper payment instruments, to electronic, to real-time – but in others, underdeveloped payment systems hold back economic and social development.

This book is intended to assist the reader in navigating the payments landscape. The author explores highly topical areas, such as the role of payment systems in enabling commerce to contribute to the development of emerging economies, the evolution of payment systems from paper instruments to computerization, the role of cryptocurrencies, and the slow decline of plastic credit and debit cards owing to alternative forms of payment being introduced.

Altogether, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of payment and offers projections for the future, encouraging readers to explore their own predictions, using the framework that the book has provided. It is vital reading for technologists, marketers, executives and investors in the FinTech sector, as well as academics teaching business and technology courses.