By David L. Stearns
Even though these born after the Nineteen Nineties may possibly by no means have recognized a time with out them, check playing cards and the digital and computing networks they turn on went via an specific technique of production and adoption—a strategy which actively formed those ubiquitous structures into what they're at the present time. to appreciate why those structures ended up the best way they did, one first must comprehend their origins, and the way judgements made of their early years essentially formed the best way they evolved.
Electronic price alternate recaptures the origins of 1 of those structures specifically: the digital money community often called VISA. The e-book examines intimately the transformation of the VISA method from a set of non-integrated, localized, paper-based financial institution bank card courses into the cooperative, worldwide, digital worth trade community it truly is at the present time. Following an introductory bankruptcy that units the context, chapters adhere approximately to chronological order, construction the tale in a logical fashion.
Topics and features:
* presents a background of the VISA approach from the mid-1960s to the early Nineteen Eighties, charting the layout, production and adoption of the process in the course of its starting place years and such a lot prolific interval of innovation
* offers a historic narrative in accordance with learn accrued from own records and interviews with key actors who designed, equipped, and took part within the VISA fee system
* Investigates, for the 1st time, either the technological and social infrastructures invaluable for the VISA process to operate
* offers an in depth case research, highlighting the mutual shaping of know-how and social kinfolk, and the effect that previous info processing practices have at the means corporations undertake pcs and telecommunications
* Examines how “gateways” in transactional networks can make stronger or undermine confirmed social limitations, and studies the institution of belief in new cost devices
This insightful paintings might be of curiosity to researchers from various disciplines, from historians of know-how, company and finance, to economists and sociologists, in addition to the overall reader. using educational jargon is stored to a minimal, and short reasons are supplied of helpful recommendations from technology and know-how stories for the advantage of these and not using a historical past during this box.