Field Guide to Global Payments by Sophia Goldberg. This book will offer a solid foundation of the payments space. It’s a super easy read that’s written like a series of blog posts. I think Sophia actually considered writing a blog/newsletter at first and instead opted to self-publish a book.
Sophia used to be a product manager at Adyen and has recently founded a fintech startup. She really knows her stuff. Lithic's general counsel Matt Janiga (former Stripe, Square, Capital One) wrote the chapter on compliance.
The Anatomy of the Swipe by Ahmed Siddiqui. This is another easy read that’s packed with a ton of illustrations. It’s practically a graphic novel. When Ahmed joined Marqeta, he didn’t have any experience in the space and found learning about cards difficult. Anatomy of the Swipe is the book he wish he had when he first got started.
Ahmed was previously the VP of product management at Marqeta and is now a product leader at Branch.
Payments Systems in the U.S. by Carol Coye Benson. This book is like the US payments encyclopedia. It’s extremely informational and a great resource, but I won’t sugar coat it. This book is as boring as watching paint dry lol. Sorry, Carol.
BaaS providers partner with banks to make their products available to tech companies over an API. This allows companies to easily embed bank accounts, cards, and loans directly into their software.
You can also use the APIs to manage and customize these products (e.g. creating authorization rules, setting spending limits, checking balances).
If you want to understand most fintech use cases today, you need to learn a bit about BaaS and API banking.