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The Book of Payments

Historical and Contemporary Views on the Cashless Society

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Provides a global overview of the history and development of retail financial transaction infrastructures
  • Offers insights into future alternatives to cash, cheques and plastic
  • Features the perspectives of expert academics and practitioners from across the globe

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Table of contents (33 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxxvi
  2. Introduction: The 360 Degrees of Cashlessness

    • Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, Leonidas Efthymiou
    Pages 1-10
  3. Emergence and Future of Cashless Technologies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83
    2. Origins of the Modern Concept of a Cashless Society, 1950s–1970s

      • Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, Thomas Haigh, David L. Stearns
      Pages 95-106
    3. The Cyprus Cash Crash: A Case of Collective Punishment

      • Leonidas Efthymiou, Sophia Michael
      Pages 131-140
    4. CajaVecina: The Bancarization of Chile Through Corner Shops

      • Juan Felipe Espinosa Cristia, José Ignacio Alarcón Molina
      Pages 141-151
  4. Paying with Plastic

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 153-153
    2. Entrée: The Rocky Origins of Visa’s Debit Card

      • David L. Stearns
      Pages 155-165

About this book

This book examines the nature of retail financial transaction infrastructures. Contributions assume a long-term outlook in their exploration of the key financial processes and systems that support a global transition to a cashless economy. The volume offers both modern and historic accounts that demonstrate the constantly changing role of payment instruments. It brings together different theoretical approaches to the study, re-examining and forecasting changes in retail payment systems. Chapters explore a global transition to a cashless society and contemplate future alternatives to cash, cheques and plastic, featuring the perspectives of academics from different disciplines in conversation and industry participants from six continents. Readers are invited to discover the innovation in payment systems and how it co-evolves with changes in society and organisations through personal, corporate and governmental processes.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Bangor Business School, Bangor, United Kingdom

    Bernardo Batiz-Lazo

  • Intercollege Larnaca, Larnaca, Cyprus

    Leonidas Efthymiou

About the editors

Bernardo Batiz-Lazo read economics at ITAM, Mexico, and Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain; history at the University of Oxford, UK,  and received a doctorate in business administration from Manchester Business School, UK). He has been studying financial markets and institutions since 1988. He joined the University of Bangor as Professor of Business History and Bank Management after appointments in Leicester, UK; the Open University, UK,  and Queen's University of Belfast, Ireland. He has combined full time appointments with consulting and executive training in Europe, the Gulf states, Latin America and Asia. Bernardo has written over 35 refereed articles, 3 books and 8 distance learning books. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, research associate of Fundación Estudios Financieros (Fundef – ITAM), and edits a weekly report on new working papers  in payments and financial technology (see http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-pay).

Leonidas Efthymiou is coordinator of the Business Department at Intercollege Larnaca, Cyprus, and lecturer at UNICAF, Cyprus, since 2010. He received his PhD from the University of Leicester, UK, in 2011 through an ethnographic study on workplace control and resistance. His PhD thesis received the 2012 Best Dissertation award at the Academy of Management meeting, held in Boston, USA. He is interested in a wide range of business phenomena, varying from service workers performing emotional, affective and aesthetic labour to cashless payments in the context of corporate legitimacy and sociology of finance.  His recent publications examine the role of payment infrastructures during banking shutdowns, insolvencies and bank-runs. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Book of Payments

  • Book Subtitle: Historical and Contemporary Views on the Cashless Society

  • Editors: Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, Leonidas Efthymiou

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60231-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-60230-5Published: 21 December 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-60231-2Published: 04 December 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXXVI, 416

  • Number of Illustrations: 45 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Financial Services, Banking

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access