An introduction to the key concepts and payment systems that underpin our global economy.


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.