Get our recommendations of the top books, training programs, team exercises, and more.
Payments can be intimidating. There are product innovations, changing regulations, company announcements, and new angles on existing situations. Plus, the underlying infrastructure itself is complicated and varied across payment products. For example, the original card payment started with four parties: the cardholder, the cardholder's bank (issuer), the merchant, and the merchant's bank (acquirer). That was complex enough.
Then payments started unbundling to individual players for Orchestration, Fraud Prevention, Chargeback Management, Conversion Optimization, and Tokenization. With such specialization, even if you have been in the industry for a while or work closely with its nuances daily, there is always more to learn.
If you are a life-long knowledge seeker like me, that's both comforting, and exciting. And the industry agrees. When our Head of Product, Matt Vanhouten, posted on LinkedIn to ask for recommendations on the best payment content and courses, the recommendations poured in. The high engagement had us reflect on the fact that if our team, which has all worked in payments and technology for years, is constantly looking to upskill and uplevel our knowledge, others might be too. Many of us learned on the job, but more resources are available now.
We created the list of resources below based on what we know and hear and arranged it alphabetically. We welcome your suggestions for adding to it or making other updates.
Books
All published in the last few years to meet the need for payment education:
Anatomy of a Card Swipe by Ahmed Siddiqui
A great introduction to all types of card payments and the infrastructure that enables them - issuing and acquiring banks, payment networks, and more. The author turned his challenges in learning payments on the job at Marqeta into a book and a course. Anyone who works in accepting payments online or in-store, or issuing cards, or even just as a curious consumer using card products will find this an easy, informative read.
Payment Systems in the US by Carol Coye Benson, Scott Loftesness, Russ Jones & Glenbrook Partners
It offers a comprehensive look at cards, checks, ACH, wires, and cash, but as the title suggests, it is for the US market. It's already in its third edition, and new updates include a glossary of popular industry terminology and current payment innovations.
The Field Guide to Global Payments by Sophia Goldberg
Written by an industry insider from Adyen, this book introduces the payments industry, zooming back to look at the industry's origins, its current evolution and the payment technologies that could play an even bigger part in the future. It's a great start who wants to understand the mechanics of how payments work.
Understanding Payments by Neira Jones
Coming from an author with deep experience across financial institutions and regulatory bodies, this book is the newest one on the block. It offers the fundamentals of the payments ecosystem and, as importantly, an overview of the global regulatory landscape. It even comes with a glossary to further demystify all of the acronyms any industry develops over time. It seems most complete from a payment method and global perspective, and is more EU/UK centric.
Training
Everyone learns differently, and for those looking to learn from training, here are a few options that come up most frequently:
Glenbrook consults on strategy, research and analysis, educates with on-demand modules, and offers Boot Camp workshops. Depending on whether you are looking into training for yourself, a few team members or an entire function (we have seen all three versions), you have options to select from.
MRC has developed a name for its e-learning courses, conferences, and certification programs. You can choose among the Certified Payments and Fraud Professional (CPFPP) certification, e-learning courses like Payments and Fraud Essentials, or attend one of its worldwide conferences.
With a specific focus on CNP, PaymentsEd is dedicated to providing education and networking opportunities that help its members grow. It frequently publishes webinars and other educational resources and is set up to help professionals from all card-on-file and CNP merchants get the latest information on trends, regulations, and product developments.
Kudos to Stripe for offering a range of courses targeted at 4 types of professionals across payments, including general payment professionals (analysts), implementation architects, developers, and sales. Yes, they are targeted at those using or moving to Stripe products, but learners can use these to apply what they have learned to other products in the same category. For each type of learner, there are broader courses about the industry foundations and fundamentals. Certifications for those who complete the courses are a nice bonus.
Industry Experts
If your learning comes from following blogs and LinkedIn posts, here are a few to consider:
Putting Your Learnings into Action
Learning is more fun in a group, and exchanging information deepens our understanding. Book club discussions, taking a course together, sharing a relevant article on the group chat, creating a card from scratch that can pass the Luhn algorithm, or reviewing Earnings reports of notable payment companies to identify the strategic roadmap are all examples of putting experiential learning opportunities into action.
The sheer amount of knowledge readily available to us is exciting. Let's continue growing and learning. If you have questions about anything you see, please contact us at VGS, and we'd be happy to discuss these together.
Think we left something off? Drop us a line here or on LinkedIn.
