the.com/payment systems
the plumbing of trust — invisible until it clogs, then it's the only thing that matters.
means the networks, rails, and rules that move money from one account to another and make sure everyone agrees it happened.
from from clay tablets tracking grain debts in mesopotamia to clearinghouses in 19th-century london, humans have always needed a trusted third party to say yes, that transfer really occurred.
visa's daily volumeprocesses over 500 million transactions a day
swift isn't moneyit just sends messages, not actual funds
settlement lagmany payments finalize days after you feel them
failure modea single outage can freeze national commerce