Paying with Plastic, second edition: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing (Mit Press)

Paying with Plastic first edition has been revamped, rewritten and repositioned here with edition number two.Most important, Paying with Plastic "2.0" addresses new developments of online payment processing. The authors correctly begin to question the requirement of a merchant set top box for reading "antiquated magnetic stripes"."Old is new" item #1. Frank McNamara's Diners Club platform would cost about $50,000 to set up today. What's the next mutiny of merchants?Old is new item #2. Sears starting up Discover and getting to more merchants tha American Express -all within 2 years. Moore's law (doubling within time) would suggest the next Discover would ramp up in less time.Old is new #3. Industries in decline, lobby best. The payment industry's recently raised interchange rates. Does technology cost more?! No, but growth is stagnant.Old is new #4. Whoops, John Reed (ex-ceo of Citibank) pulled their Visa membership (p14) and moved the Mastercard logo to the back. Why?! Pull the entire Citi into a closed loop - Citi wanted to be like Amex and Discover. There will be more banks doing this like Chase (Octogon) or MBNA (PayPass).Old is new #5. Wal-mart as a bank. See Sears above in #2. Wal-marts pays fees to V/MC/D/Amex but they'd rather charge fees and lend money. Why just make $2.00 on the VCR when you can make $10 on the financing. By the way, I like the payment system name, "Wallycard"... just kidding.

If you work in the payments, credit card or finance industry this book is great. It has a very easy to read history about credit cards, who knew Diners Club invented the category in the 50's. But more importantly is how the industry is moving forward and progressing.Overall, this is a book you read if you need to, but I can't imagine anyone outside the industry reading it. You would have to be the most intellecually curious person in the world if you read this cause you were interested in how credit cards work.

This is the most accurate analysis of the the payment card industry, and I highly recommend it for any professional in the industry. A bit dry - a more exciting beach read can be found in The PayPal Wars. But this is a detailed exploration. I will note that this is the second edition, and there have been promises (and even published chapters) from the third edition. I look forward to the third edition and it may be worth checking out the MIT Press website to see if the third edition is out.

The authors both are long-time consultants for Visa and it is very apparent in this book. The discussion of MasterCard, Discover, and American Express is limited. The treatment of various legal actions (Nabanco, US DOJ, WalMart, duality) is one sided. There is minimal study of the economics of the business from vantage points (consumer, merchant, acquirer, Issuer, co-branding partner, etc.) other than the card association.It's clear from some of the statistical material prsented that Visa particpated in the book.Ever see JAG? It's about a real portrayl of the Navy & Marine Corp as this is of the card industry.

Vey basic but covers all the aspect of the credit card world. Also, gives some details about the industry mayor events and the recent developings after the Antitrust litigations against Visa and MasterCard.

2nd edition - Outdated. The payment industry is changing and it is not just a US invention. Japan is on the edge of electronic money through your cell phone.Be aware that this is an overview and a dated one. And you won't be dissappointed.

In this history of payment cards, David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee provide an amazingly lucid account of a couple of unusual business models: the "two-sided platform," which in the use of payment cards means walking a tightrope between the interests of merchants and consumers; and the "co-opetitive," in which the bank members of MasterCard and Visa cooperate in developing industry practices while competing for business. The authors, who are both former Visa consultants, sound like your favorite college professors - up to date and extremely sophisticated, yet friendly and anecdotal (at one point, they describe a Shell gas station near MIT to make a point about competition among cards). They typically begin chapters with easily understood notions from which they methodically build complex structures of ideas and information. Another virtue of the book is its concreteness - although that occasionally devolves into repetitiveness - starting with an explanation involving electronic signals and following the paper path of what happens when you hand your credit, debit or charge card to a cashier. The authors even consider the design and manufacture of the cards themselves. We recommend this book as essential reading for those in the banking or payment card industries; and it's not a bad idea for card users to read it - which these days means you...and just about everyone else.

I loved this book and how the author talks about the fine points of credit cards and how American consumers got hooked into it. A terrific read and it is money well spent, although FREE shipping would have been nice!