Electronic Value Exchange: Origins of the Visa Electronic Payment System

I work in the credit card industry, but I was frustrated by the difficulty in getting good information on the industry and how it was established. I bought this book, even though expensive, with the hope that a more academic history might fill in many of the gaps that I have, especially as why we have the incredibly complex set of networks/processors/acquirers/issuers/gateways that characterize the industry.This book far exceeded my best expectation. The writing is very thorough,well documented and very clear. I emphasize the quality of writing because there is so much academic writing that is difficult to read or just plain boring.David Stearns, the author, has done a great service to all those who work in the industry by putting together an overview of the Visa network, and the creation of the credit card industry which is concise, detailed and very interesting.The author is also quite good at relating the detailed history to the general implications in society;and I enjoyed his closing chapter on The Sociotechnical History of Payment Systems, a wordy chapter title to be sure. But the section entitled "Value Flows According to Mark" explores the history of currency and money as it relates to the visa Mark... All very interesting,and none of it that hard to read and understand.The only drawback to this book is its high cost. For me, the price was more than justified. I work in the industry and I'm willing to invest in my own knowledge and learning. An academic book by definition is going to have a small audience, and needs to charge more to make it worthwhile. I can give this book my highest recommendation, you won't be disappointed. ---geoff s.PS I hope that the author will come out with a sequel that will take his history from the 1980s to the current year...and I'm particularly interested in the acquirer side of the industry, which though it is enormous, and though there are enormous corporations who work in that space (a la First Data), there is almost no good history or explanation of where these businesses come from and how they currently function.

I really enjoyed this book overall. I work in banking and the book provides great insight into how the modern payment system came into being. I do not have a strong IT background, but still found the technical discussion easy enough to grasp so that I understood the issues being tackled. The introduction of Dee Hock as the spearhead to Visa was eye-opening and I find it hard to believe that I had never heard of him before. Highly recommend this to anyone interested in payments, especially in the nuanced discussions that went into building what we today take for granted.

I really enjoyed this book. It is easy to read. The writing is simple and clear. The research is clean and well structured. The chapters are provide accurate and deep context that matches the proposed topic. Highly recommend this book. If you have ever written code, you will appreciate the content with zero superfluousness.

Electronic Value Exchange is well written and insightful. The historical and technology perspective of how the VISA network emerged is interesting and a good read. Ideal for any "game changing" technology platform developers who are hoping to change the world with their new, better, cheaper way for doing things. In particular, the writer's focus on the social-political-technical cost of challenging and changing the status quo is value received.