Earlier, credit cards separated lending from banks Now, mobile phones are separating payments from banks There is a great unbundling happening. We are in an exciting time!

Payment card technologies differed across countries due to the underlying infrastructure. While Europe started using Smart/Chip cards, US continued to use Magnetic stripe cards for a long time as it was much cheaper to process transactions through telephone connections in the US

Did you know? Visa cards start with "4" Mastercard with "5" Discover with "6" A travel and entertainment (T&E) card with a "3" and hence American Express with "37" and Diners Club with "38" Quite incredible how card schemes managed to have the same convention globally!

Interesting to see a transparent Interchange+ pricing offered by Finix for processing payments. This definitely saves hundreds of manhours spent by merchants in negotiating rates with PayFacs and Acquirers

Dee Hock explaining what business Visa was in, back in 1966. It was in the business of 1. Identification 2. Data exchange 3. De-Contextualization

Evolution of US Acquiring Processing in 3 Infographics. Credits: Flagship Advisory Partners