Electronic Value Exchange

Electronic Value Exchange examines in detail the transformation of the VISA electronic payment system from a collection of non-integrated, localized, paper-based bank credit card programs into the cooperative, global, electronic value exchange network it is today. Topics and features: provides a history of the VISA system from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s; presents a historical narrative based on research gathered from personal documents and interviews with key actors; investigates, for the first time, both the technological and social infrastructures necessary for the VISA system to operate; supplies a detailed case study, highlighting the mutual shaping of technology and social relations, and the influence that earlier information processing practices have on the way firms adopt computers and telecommunications; examines how "gateways" in transactional networks can reinforce or undermine established social boundaries, and reviews the establishment of trust in new payment devices.

Setting the Stage: Money, Credit, and Payments in America.- Associating: Dee Hock and the Creation of the Organization.- Crafting the Social Dynamics: Staffing, Operating Regulations, and Advertising.- Automating Authorization: BASE.- Automating Clearing and Settlement: BASE II and III.- Expanding the System: Organizational and Technical Growth.- Automating the Point of Sale: Encoding Standards and Merchant Dial Terminals.- Challenging Conceptual Barriers: EFT and The Debit Card.- Negotiating Roles: Controversies and the End of an Era.- Conclusions: Towards a General Socio-technical History of Payment Systems.