Master the $2 Trillion Payment Industry

Go from confused to confident on payments infrastructure. Understand the plumbing that moves money — and position yourself as the expert in every room you walk into.

Payments move trillions of dollars every day. Yet most professionals working in or around fintech — product managers, analysts, engineers, founders, consultants — have significant gaps in how the system actually works. They know the surface layer. They don't know why authorization fails at 1.2%, what interchange really is, how ACH settles versus FedNow, or why cross-border payments cost 3-7% to send.

This course fixes that. Ten in-depth written modules. Real mechanics. No fluff. Built for people who need to use this knowledge at work — not just pass an exam.

Who This Is For

Fintech Professionals

You've been in the industry long enough to do your job, but you know your understanding has gaps. You want to move from surface-level familiarity to deep, structured expertise on the infrastructure you work with every day — the kind of knowledge that changes how you think about product decisions, vendor relationships, and strategic bets.

Career Switchers

You're coming from traditional banking, software engineering, consulting, or another adjacent field, and you need to understand the payments landscape to break in or level up. This course gives you the vocabulary, the mental models, and the operational understanding to speak the language fluently from day one in a payments role.

Startup Founders

You're building a product that touches payments — choosing a processor, integrating a PSP, deciding whether to go the PayFac route — but you don't fully understand what's happening underneath. Understanding the rails, the compliance requirements, and the ecosystem players before you build saves you from expensive mistakes and positions you to negotiate from a place of knowledge.

MBA and Business Students

Your program teaches you that payments exist. This course teaches you how they work — the economics, the infrastructure, the competitive dynamics, and where the industry is going. The kind of practical, real-world knowledge that case studies and textbooks don't give you, and that hiring managers in fintech actually test for.

What You'll Learn

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Understand how a card transaction moves from tap to bank settlement — and who takes a cut at every step along the way
• Explain the difference between card networks, processors, acquirers, and gateways — and why the distinction matters for product decisions, pricing, and compliance
• Read interchange fee tables and understand how card economics work, including why merchants pay what they pay and how issuers earn revenue
• Know the difference between ACH, RTP, FedNow, and wire transfers — when each is used, who controls them, and how the new real-time rails are disrupting the status quo
• Understand how Stripe, Adyen, and Square built billion-dollar businesses on the PayFac model, and what it takes to operate at that layer
• Navigate cross-border payments, FX risk, and correspondent banking — including why fintechs like Wise and Airwallex are winning and where the friction comes from
• Explain how digital wallets, BNPL, and crypto rails are changing the payment stack and what it means for incumbents and challengers alike
• Speak confidently with payment engineers, compliance teams, banking partners, and investors — using precise language that signals genuine expertise

Course Format

• Self-paced written lessons — no video required, read anywhere, anytime, on any device
• 10 modules, approximately 4 hours of reading total (longer if you follow the rabbit holes)
• Quiz after each module to test understanding and reinforce retention
• Glossary of 100+ payment industry terms across all modules
• Updated for 2026 — includes FedNow, stablecoins, open banking, and CFPB 1033

The 10 Modules

1. The Payment Ecosystem — Meet the players: issuers, acquirers, networks, processors, gateways, PSPs, and PayFacs. Understand who does what, how they connect, and how money actually flows from payer to payee. This is the mental model every other module builds on.

1. Card Networks Deep Dive — Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, and the regional giants (UnionPay, RuPay, UPI). How four-party and three-party models work, and why interchange rates are a $90B+ annual battleground that shapes everything from card rewards to merchant fees.

1. How Card Processing Actually Works — The technical journey of a transaction from authorization to settlement, step by step. Learn about clearing batches, decline codes, chargebacks, and why money doesn't move instantly even when the terminal says "Approved."

1. ACH, Wire Transfers, and Real-Time Payments — The rails that move the majority of the world's money by value. Understand ACH batch processing and NACHA rules, Fedwire for high-value same-day settlement, SWIFT for international wires, and the new real-time rails (RTP, FedNow) that are disrupting everything.

1. Cross-Border Payments and FX — How international payments flow through the correspondent banking network, where the cost and friction accumulate, and why fintechs like Wise and Airwallex are winning by building around the old system rather than through it.

1. Digital Wallets and Mobile Payments — Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and super-apps. How NFC, tokenization, and QR codes power mobile payments globally, and why wallet adoption looks so different in the US versus China versus India versus Brazil.

1. Buy Now Pay Later and Embedded Finance — The BNPL explosion: how Affirm and Klarna make money (and sometimes don't), how they integrate with merchants, and what the credit risk dynamics really look like. Plus what embedded finance means for non-financial companies and where the regulatory lines are being drawn.

1. Crypto Payments and Stablecoins — How blockchain payment rails actually work, stablecoin mechanics and the case for USDC in cross-border and B2B payments, and real use cases in remittances and DeFi. What's hype, what's infrastructure, and what's worth watching.

1. Payment Security: PCI DSS, Tokenization, and 3D Secure — The security standards that govern the industry, how tokenization protects card data and reduces compliance scope, how 3DS 2.0 authentication works, and the current fraud landscape shaping every security architecture decision.

1. The Future: Open Banking, A2A Payments, and CBDCs — Where payments are headed: open banking APIs and the CFPB 1033 rule in the US, account-to-account payment rails that bypass card networks entirely, and central bank digital currencies — what's live, what's in pilot, and what the realistic timeline looks like for the industry.

Pricing

$97 — One-Time Payment (Most Popular)

Lifetime access to all 10 modules, quizzes, glossary, and all future updates. Pay once, own it forever. No subscription required.

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$15/month — FinTekCafe Pro Membership

Includes the full Digital Payments Masterclass plus access to every premium article in the FinTekCafe Pro library — payment networks, salary guides, neobank analysis, crypto rails, and AI in fintech. New content added regularly. Cancel anytime.

Start Pro Membership for $15/month →

Both options include a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you don't find the course valuable, email us and we'll refund you — no questions asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does this course take to complete?

Plan for roughly 4 hours of core reading across all 10 modules — about 20-30 minutes per module at a focused reading pace, longer if you follow the supplementary links and really dig in. There's no fixed schedule. Some people work through it in a weekend; others do one module per week. The content stays accessible indefinitely and there's no deadline.

Do I need a technical or finance background to take this course?

No. Module 1 starts from first principles — what a payment is, who the players are, and how the system connects. If you can read a bank statement, you have enough context to start. If you already have industry experience, the course will fill gaps and structure what you already know rather than cover ground you're familiar with.

Is this course kept up to date?

Yes. The course is updated when significant industry developments occur — new rails go live, regulations change, or major market shifts affect how the industry works. The current version covers FedNow (operational since 2023), the CFPB 1033 open banking rule, current stablecoin developments, and CBDC projects that are live or in late-stage pilots as of 2026.

What is your refund policy?

If you complete fewer than three modules and don't find the course worth the investment, contact us within 30 days of purchase and we'll issue a full refund. No forms, no lengthy process, no questions asked.

Will I get a certificate when I finish?

Yes. Upon completing all 10 modules and their associated quizzes, you receive a Digital Payments Masterclass completion certificate. It's a PDF you can save and share — useful for your LinkedIn profile, internal training records, or professional development documentation.

Is this better than reading blog posts or watching YouTube videos on payments?

The value of this course is structure and depth. Free content online covers individual topics well — you can find articles on interchange, or a video explaining ACH. What you can't find is a single, coherent curriculum that takes you from the full ecosystem overview through every major rail and model, written at a practitioner level, with quizzes to test retention, and updated to reflect where the industry is today. This course is the structured version of what would take most people months of scattered reading to piece together.

Can I access this on mobile?

Yes. The course is entirely text-based — no video files, no heavy media assets. It loads and reads cleanly on any phone or tablet browser. You can read on your commute, between meetings, or anywhere you have a few minutes.

What if I'm already working in payments — is this too basic?

It depends where you sit. If you've worked in a narrow part of payments for years (say, card fraud or ACH operations), you'll find the modules outside your specialty highly valuable. If you're a broad payments generalist with 5+ years of experience across multiple rails and models, some modules may cover familiar ground — though most professionals find that the structured presentation and the modules on emerging areas (crypto rails, open banking, CBDCs) add genuine value. If you're unsure, the 30-day refund policy means you can evaluate it without risk.

Built to be Trusted

Built by fintech practitioners. Updated for 2026. Join 500+ professionals who've completed the Digital Payments Masterclass.

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