December 7, 2022 | 5 min read

Book review: seven books with insights into innovation

Payments Book reviewPayments Book reviewPayments Book review

As the mercury plummets and the shortest day of the year draws near, what better time to curl up with a good read about our favourite subject: innovation. And to help you in your quest for a good winter read, we’ve looked at seven books released this year covering the hottest of topics, from Web3 and the metaverse to embedded finance and corporate disruption. Let’s take a look…

The Pay Off, How Changing the Way We Pay Changes Everything, by Gottfried Leibbrandt, Natasha De Teran

“No part of the world of money is more critical to our everyday lives than payments, and arguably no part of money is more ignored than payments.” With that in mind, The Pay Off seeks to help readers understand why payments in an era of huge technological change matter.

Across seven illuminating chapters, the book dissects all things payments, from fundamental challenges and the ‘war on cash’ to the hidden costs of payments and the arrival of Big Tech and banks in the payments revolution. Its authors, Gottfried Leibrandt (former CEO of SWIFT) and Natasha De Teran (previously a journalist specialising in financial regulation and market structures), turn what many might perceive to be a dry subject into intriguing and pacey romp through an industry that has tremendous societal implications.

In The Tech Revolution chapter, we’re reminded of the risks associated with making transactions easier such as overspending. This point was illustrated by an experiment conducted by MIT professor Drazen Prelec, who organised a silent auction of tickets for a sold-out basketball game. On average, credit card buyers bid twice as much as cash buyers for the same tickets, suggesting that where tangible money is removed from transactions, the ‘pain of spending’ is diminished.

The Pay Off also looks at what happens next in payments and warns that an ID card-sceptic UK population risks being left behind internationally as digital ID innovation advances. Interestingly, the authors expect banks, with their dependable liquidity and risk expertise, to remain the major players in the global payments architecture. The battle will be over which part of the network owns the customer experience – the winners will determine everyone else’s role.

A truly fascinating book, The Pay Off should be read by anyone who spends money (all of us) and is of interest to businesses offering or taking payments (pretty much every company).

Embedded Finance, When Payments Become an Experience, by Scarlett Sieber, Sophie Guibaud

Spanning 220 pages across seven chapters, Embedded Finance, When Payments Become an Experience is an incredibly useful guide to where embedded finance came from and where it’s going. Its authoritative authors are industry insiders working on Money 20/20 and crypto compliance and payments API Fiat Republic.

Packed with case studies that include transport, entertainment and lending solutions, the book walks through the impacts of embedded finance on both businesses and consumers. It’s easily digestible, with handy summaries of the key points at the end of each chapter.

Marqeta gets a mention too, quoting CEO and founder Jason Gardner on his strategy for successful partnerships: “We think about it as a network of networks where we benefit because those cards are being built and deployed on Marqeta’s platform, we help our customers grow, which they see a direct benefit of that and we see a benefit because it helps our platform grow.”

While the book opens by asking the reader to reflect on the previously unimaginable impact of the smartphone on our lives, it concludes with a vision of how embedded finance is going to take over the world. A bold statement but plausible when you read about the lives of two personas eight years from now. For example, Mia benefits from embedded finance taking care of her energy bills by paying for power in advance ahead of a forecasted price rise – while she sleeps.

Later in the day, Mia’s car provides restaurant information and allows her to order and pay for food while on the go, ahead of it being delivered as she arrives home after a day of retail therapy. Meanwhile, rideshare driver Mike’s day takes a slightly different turn, with embedded finance helping him to fund a replacement for a punctured tyre, and his health insurance provider booking a doctor’s appointment after noticing an irregular heartbeat.

Embedded Finance, When Payments Become an Experience is an engaging read and a must for innovators who agree with the idea that “our vision of financial life will change” dramatically before the decade is over.

Blockchain and Web3, Building Cryptocurrency, Privacy and Security Foundations of the Metaverse, by Winston Ma, Ken Huang

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and that certainly applies to Blockchain and Web3 by Winston Ma and Ken Huang. What feels in the hand like an academic/business book is actually a thoroughly engaging read, which breaks down the key milestones in blockchain technology in the context of relatable real-world experiences. For example, how Ukraine posted a link on social media allowing citizens around the world to make a fortune in crypto donations to fund the ongoing crisis in the country.

The book is broken into three parts, looking firstly at how digital technologies are beginning to converge in the metaverse or omniverse. In this, the authors describe the seven layers of the metaverse tech stack, while repeatedly warning that the metaverse or Web3 can’t be dominated by Big Tech if it is to realise its true potential for society.

In part two, Ma and Huang, whose impressive credentials in international financial technology lend authority to their arguments, explore how blockchain breakthroughs have laid the foundations for the digital economy, covering cryptocurrencies and tokenomics, DeFi, NFTs and the creator economy, blockchain gaming, privacy and security. The concluding section dives into the war among the open metaverse, Big Tech’s ‘Walled Gardens’ and sovereign states.

The recurring theme of warning against big institutions undermining Web3 by taking away individuals’ ‘sovereignty and identity’ is a fitting place to end on in this book, which you’ll want to keep at hand for the foreseeable future.

Whether you’re a tech innovator, forward-thinking business owner or a parent who wants to help their teenage children understand the technologies that are going to shape their lives in the years ahead, Blockchain and Web3 would make a superb stocking filler this Christmas.

The Metaverse And How It Will Revolutionize Everything, by Matthew Ball

Continuing the metaverse theme, The Metaverse And How It Will Revolutionize Everything combines and updates pioneering theorist and venture capitalist Matthew Ball’s extensive writing on this topic.

In this concept-defining book, Ball eloquently shares insights about the technology needed to create the metaverse while exploring some of the societal impacts of the shift to a metaverse. Some of the examples of dominant innovations that were dismissed when they first emerged offer a useful sense check for anyone minded to dismiss this nascent technology, the first touchscreen iPhone in a world of buttons being a powerful case study.

And while generally this book offers a broad but detailed take on the way in which the metaverse will touch all areas of life, an entire chapter is devoted to payment rails, making it of serious interest to fintech aficionados.

In one section, Ball describes how the gaming industry set the metaverse’s economic precedent, before going on to explain why the cost of payment processing in the metaverse is significantly higher than in the real world due to the bundling of technology with payment processing.

But perhaps the genius of Ball’s treatise is that the reader is equipped with a vision of what the metaverse means, what the challenges and opportunities are and, crucially, how it will revolutionise everything. Recommend.

Corporate Explorer, How Corporations Beat Startups at the Innovation Game, by Andrew Binns, Charles O’Reilly, Michael Tushman

Corporate Explorer, How Corporations Beat Startups at the Innovation Game caught our eye owing to its potential relevance to fintechs looking to persuade traditional financial institutions to adopt their innovations. It didn’t disappoint.

Corporate Explorer’s three authors draw on their experience with the IBM Strategic Leadership Forum at Harvard Business School and discuss a range of case studies on how experienced business people delivered innovation from within.

The book opens by discussing the conventional wisdom that “corporations should not even try to lead disruptive innovation”, before explaining that the reality today is that big companies are using their assets to beat the odds of disruption through continual evolution. Think Netflix’s pivot from mail order DVD to online streaming to content creator. It concedes though that being digital native and relatively young has helped the likes of Netflix and Amazon.

However, you don’t need to start from a digital native position to succeed and Corporate Explorer shows the disciplines and approaches internal innovators have adopted with some of the best-known established big businesses to disrupt from within. Each chapter is handily summarised with learnings on ideation, experimentation, leadership, risk and reward and scaling. If you’re a startup founder and want to get into the mindset of a big business you’re trying to win over, or are a manager within a traditional firm struggling to overcome stagnation, Corporate Explorer offers useful insights and knowledge to help drive change.

The Book of Crypto, The Complete Guide to Understanding Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets, by Henri Arslanian

Although it’s been a tough year in the world of crypto, digital currency and asset innovation will continue on. And if you’re a financial services pioneer and are yet to consider where cryptocurrencies fit with your proposition, it’s well worth giving yourself a 360 view of the space.

And that is exactly what The Book of Crypto, The Complete Guide to Understanding Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets, by Henri Arslanian, former PwC Crypto Leader and Partner and Adjunct Professor at the University of Hong Kong, provides.

A fairly hefty tome just shy of 400 pages, Arslanian takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the history of money, including its relation to faith and its evolution in different parts of the world. Then after going back in time, the book brings our attention neatly to the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto’s famous Bitcoin whitepaper of 2008 which proclaimed:

“A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”

This sets readers up for a rigorous explanation of Bitcoin and the roles of decentralisation and immutability, before turning attention turns to Ethereum, new blockchains and more. No stone is left unturned in Arslanian’s guide to digital currencies. Appropriately, The Book of Crypto, having begun by delving into the past, ends with some thoughts on the future, looking at the metaverse and Web3, along with quantum computing, zero-knowledge roll-ups and decentralised autonomous organisations.

If you want a book on cryptocurrencies that you can refer to time and again, Arslanian’s guide is well worth a look.

Finance with a Purpose, FinTech, Development and Financial Inclusion in the Global Economy, by Frederic de Mariz

Finance with a Purpose, FinTech, Development and Financial Inclusion in the Global Economy, is the third volume in the Transformations in Banking, Finance and Regulation series, which aims to address issues affecting banking, from the shocks caused by the pandemic to climate change and digital innovation.

An Adjunct Professor in Innovative Finance and Impact Investing at Columbia University, de Mariz takes a holistic view of disruption to financial services, exploring open banking, cryptocurrencies and the future of bank branches – based on some 20 years of observation.

The book’s key objective is to answer the question: how can the financial industry globally be better programmed to allow economic agents to get access to the right financial opportunities and fulfil their potential, and therefore unlock development?

In his attempt to meet that objective, de Mariz draws on extensive studies from across the world, giving readers an in-depth insight into the trends and developments shaping the financial world. De Mariz is keen to point out that the book isn’t a report on the end of banks, but rather a “careful analysis of the historic transformation of financial services”, and an inquiry into the best path to ensure disruption serves true inclusion.

However, he hints that present threats could be nudging banks towards their ‘Kodak moment’. Over nine chapters, the author also looks at trends in microcredit and electronic payments as an entry point for inclusion. In emerging economies, a number of initiatives to increase electronic payments have delivered mixed results, with poorer households likely to withdraw funds and continue to use cash.

This points to a need for adequate inclusion and regulation. While Finance with a Purpose paints an impressive picture of the state of banking across the world today, it shies away from making any bold recommendations on the best way forward. Instead, and perhaps in true academic style, de Mariz presents a series of questions for regulators, entrepreneurs and researchers. For example, will banks be displaced by FinTech and BigTech firms, or absorb them? And how should forces eventually combine for the most efficient and inclusive financial intermediation process?

Something for the reader to ponder too.

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