F1 The payment ecosystem

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Lesson F1: Cardholder, merchant, acquirer, network and issuer: who does what, and who earns what.

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The opening of the lesson

Why it matters

Every field in a payment message exists because one party needs to tell another something. Once you know the parties and what each one wants, ISO 8583 stops being a list of numbers and becomes a conversation:

  • the issuer wants to know how the card was read;
  • the acquirer wants to be paid;
  • the network wants to route the message and settle it.

In the full lesson

  1. The concept
  2. In the real world
  3. Common mistakes
  4. What to test

What module F1 covers →

The rest of the lesson opens with a supporter pass, which you can try free for 7 days.
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