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Module 3: Payments and PayPal

 
 
 

Module 3 Description

We review the complex arrangements for making and receiving payments, with an emphasis on the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.

 
 
 

Recorded Lectures

 
 
 

Study Questions

  1. Evaluate PayPal’s mission and business overview as laid out in the 2001 S-1, Peter Thiel’s vision of the ‘future of payments’ as described in the Wired article, and excerpt from his book. Looking back years later, what did he get right? What did he get wrong? 

  2. What are the pain points, for consumers, businesses, and institutions, of the current US payments system?

  3. What are the opportunities and limitations for a global payment system? Which countries have a better payment system for some definition of “better”? Why or why not?

  4. Which innovations do you believe will drive the greatest impact on payments in the future? Which companies will enjoy the most benefits from that change and who will suffer. Why?

 
 

Reading List

Required

  1. PayPal S-1 Filing - Read pgs 1-2, 5-8, and 23-26 Paypal Inc. S-1, 28 Sept 2001.

  2. Lillingston, Karlin, Paypal Puts Dough In Your Palm, Wired, 27 Jan 1999.

  3. Theil, Peter and Masters, Blake, Zero to One, Crown. Kindle Edition, 2014. (pages 7-20) (eBook)

  4. “FedNowSM Service.” FedNow Service, Federal Reserve.

  5. Amsden, Zachary, et al. “The Libra Blockchain.” Libra.

  6. Klein, Aaron. “Is China's New Payment System the Future?” Brookings Institution, June 2019.

  7. Network Tokenization versus PCI Tokenization: Five Key Differences, PaymentsJournal, June 2019.

Optional

  1. Braintree API docs.

  2. Plaid API Endpoints.

  3. Stripe API Reference.

  4. Roberts, Jeff John. “SoFi acquires banking tech firm Galileo for $1.2 billion,” Fortune, 7 April 2020.

Deep Dive

  1. “U.S. Payment System Policy Issues: Faster Payments and Innovation.” Congressional Research Service, 23 Sept. 2019.

  2. Fisher, Irving, The Theory of Interest as Determined by Impatience to Spend Income and Opportunity to Invest It, Martino Publishing, 2012.