Industries · Financial services
Payments and fintech
How a card payment moves between the customer, the merchant, the issuer, the acquirer, and the card scheme, who earns what (interchange, scheme fees, merchant fees), how real-time payment systems such as UPI and Pix change the game, and how wallets, buy now pay later, and remittances from the Gulf to India make money per transaction.
Key takeaways
- A payment is a chain of companies, and each takes a small fee. Payments businesses earn tiny amounts per transaction, so they win through very large volume, low cost per transaction, and low fraud.
- Payments profit is a small fee times a very large number of transactions.
- Payments is shaped by regulators and national systems as much as by companies.
- Explain the four-party card model and who earns interchange, scheme fees, and the merchant discount rate
- Explain real-time account-to-account payments such as UPI, Pix, PayNow, and Aani
- Calculate the economics of one card payment, one BNPL order, and one remittance
- Name the main players in each part of payments by region
- Crack typical payments and fintech cases
Lessons
How payments work: cards, real-time payments, wallets, BNPL, and remittances
The players in a card payment, the fee flow, and the newer payment methods that compete with cards.
Payments unit economics: what one transaction earns
Split one card payment between issuer, scheme, and acquirer, then work out the economics of a BNPL order and a remittance.
Payments and fintech: players, trends, regulation, and how to crack the cases
Who does what in each region, what changed from 2024 to 2026, regulation basics, and typical case prompts.
Worked cases in this module
Look it up
Key terms