Contributions to this book begin with a unique historical accounts aiming at offering an understanding of the role of paper money and barter in society. Chapters in this section describe Western society’s obsession with, and dependence on, physical representations of money as stores of value. Chapter 2 tells about ideas and proto-visions of cashless societies and alternative notes-and-coins monetary systems appearing in literature as early as the fifteenth century. Practical and ethical problems associated with what was then conventional money engaged utopian thinkers like Thomas More (1478–1535) and laid the grounds for visions, debates and developments that followed. For writers like Robert Owen (1771–1858), William Morris (1834–1896), Samuel Butler (1835–1902) and Edward Bellamy (1850–1898), to mention a few, physical expressions of money were a drawback to human civilisation’s peace, human relations and prosperity. A cashless society (and in some instances eliminating money completely) was desirable and potentially a way to escape the greed and corruption accompanying capitalistic monetary systems.

The writings of these early visionaries somewhat overlapped with real practical problems concerning the introduction of the first private and state-issued paper money. The process of introducing banknotes in Spain, for example, lasted over a century. While the first banknotes were circulated back in 1783, it could be said that the process of institutionalisation was not complete until 1946, with the nationalization of the Bank of Spain as the central bank. This process was permeated by elements such as inflation, public debt, convertibility, legislative innovations, multiple currencies, credibility, and civil war. Together, all this provides the context of the many attempts to introduce paper money in Spain, which are documented in Chap. 3 to provide a review on the development of paper money, its purposes and challenges.

In a similar vein, the issuance of new payment methods in Chile prior to 1860 was a difficult process. As will be explained in Chap. 4, the lack of a regulatory framework and a series of failed attempts to create a state bank, in combination with increased demand for credit, resulted in commerce having to take the lead and introduce an innovative means of payment. Between 1837 and 1839, an informal bank was created while its notes entered in circulation, serving as an autonomous nerve centre for the economic development of post-colonial Chile. The situation remained until the 1860s when banks could formally print and circulate their own notes.

Since the advent of the industrial revolution and during the so called “great divergence”, nations have developed at different rates while inequality between the rich and poor has also become ever more evident. Disparity in growth rates is explained through a variety of reasons such as macroeconomic stability, openness to international trade, institutional development, better means of transportation, rates of innovation and many others. A combination of these factors was the case in the Pampas in the early 1900s (Chap. 6). They provided a fertile ground for advance payments, discounting bills of exchange, vouchers and other financial instruments that served as active financial intermediaries, leading to a significant transformation in the agrarian capitalism of Argentina during the so-called “Belle Époque”.

As evidenced in all chapters in this first part of the book, prior to the twentieth century there was widespread use and coexistence of multiple currencies as means of payment in daily transactions. Indeed, it seems that single current payment systems are almost unique to the twentieth century. In this context, Chap. 5 documents monetary plurality in the antebellum New Orleans as well as its socioeconomic and financial benefits during and after the panic of 1857.

But the use of multiple currencies is not a story of the past. For instance, Chap. 7 provides an understanding of how several types of paper money were serving as complementary to each other between 1995 and 2005 in Argentina. A sequence of events and economic realities, including inflation since the 1950s, hyperinflation between the late 1980s and early 1990s, the major economic crises of the mid-1990s, hyper-unemployment, poverty, social unrest, and fiscal deficits found Argentineans transacting with multiple paper currencies such as pesos, dollars, private vouchers, community vouchers such as the Credito, and quasi-currencies. All these together served the three main functions that are usually carried out by a single currency.

Moreover, the anthropological origins of payments and money could not overlook the established practice of bartering. There is a debate as to whether barter dates all the way back to early civilisations, through direct exchange of goods and services for other goods and services. Side stepping this debate, one of our contributors shows how there is a modern role for such a mode of exchange. The arrival of commerce over the Internet, enabling electronic barter networks around the world, indicate sophisticated and organised systems of exchange through promising entrepreneurial investments. Companies like Tradaq, covered in Chap. 8, reflect the continuation of barter through millenniums and points out the obstacles and benefits of new generation bartering in Brazil.

Technological visions and adoption are often linked to the disappearance of paper money. In other words, the idea of a cashless society since the 1950s implies a technologically-led move towards the dematerialization of money. The account in Chap. 9, nevertheless, contradicts the dichotomy between cash and dematerialisation. The analysis breaks through the dividing walls as the meanings of cash, payment and materiality become blurred through various meanings and contradictions.

Another case of how futuristic visions drive new applications long before their established economic viability is the example of cashless/checkless society in the United States in the 1950s. The theme in Chap. 10 focuses on how the discourse of the future had stimulated the early computerisation of retail financial intermediates. The ‘checkless society’ proposition included sleek, efficient and safe electronic transactions as opposed to costly, inflexible and easily-forged paper checks. Back then, checks were considered as the best established alternative to banknotes and coins. Interestingly, while the propositions for business adoption of technology were presented as a step towards realising future goals, their failure to perform was often characterised as a setback rather than a challenge to arriving at the desired, future destination.

Chapter 11 returns to the 1960s to reconsider the impact that information technology had in the development of new payment technologies. The analysis presents the case of the former Catalonian and Balearic Islands Saving Bank, today known as “la Caixa”. An important milestone for la Caixa was the arrival of the first IBM computer in 1962, enabling automation, including the offline automation of a wide range of operations. After that point, an array of mature technologies were adopted, such as teleprocessing (first through online networks, and later online in real time), which favoured the company’s leadership of cashless technologies.

A common theme in today’s narrative is that greater use of cashless payments can and will increase financial inclusion. This is the topic of Chap. 12 as illustrated by Mexico, a country with a well-developed financial system and telecommunications sector. However, financial inclusion remains low. At the same time, there is a large shadow economy (also known as parallel, grey, unrecorded, black, or informal). The Mexican government has put in place a number of initiatives to limit the growth of the informal economy and promote financial inclusion by encouraging the adoption of a number of cashless payment methods. In this context, Mexico provides us with an interesting case where the growth of cashless instruments, combined with the persistent use of cash, enables a discussion of the coexistence of several forms of payments.

Located almost 12,000 kilometres away from Mexico, Cyprus is another country with a large shadow economy. In line with studies in the ‘sociology of money’ framework, Chap. 13 presents a recollection of the events that occurred in 2013 when the Cypriot economy collapsed. During the crisis the government shut down the banking system to avoid a bank run, leaving people subsisting solely on cash distributed by ATMs and purchasing goods in the handful of stores that accepted payment cards. Three years later and through the lens of the corporate legitimacy framework, the authors of this chapter revisit the events to examine the role of local bankers, key local, European and supranational institutions and other stakeholders.

Also within the body of ‘sociology of money’ literature, Chap. 14 analyses a Chilean financial inclusion network of correspondent retailers called CajaVecina. As explained by the authors, this network was born as part of a larger strategy promoting not only increase in financial inclusion but also increased communication, socialisation and universalisation of money, while leading to increased participation and social support.

Payment cards have transformed the way we borrow and spend. This part of the book offers insights into the evolution, implications, risks, successes and failures of card technologies and innovations from their conception to the present day. For instance, Chap. 15 recounts the origins of the first debit card, known as the Entrée card and launched in the USA by Visa. This chapter tells why it took more than 20 years for debit cards to become widely adopted by the member banks of Visa.

In a similar historic manner, Chap. 16 reveals the development of card fraud since the 1950s, as well as the technologies and strategies implemented by issuers to prevent it. The story departs in the 1910s when Americans started using payment cards in department stores. Through the mid-twentieth century, cards moved out of department stores and into wider circulation. At that point, the landscape began to change. Novel universal credit cards by firms like Diners Club (1950) and American Express (1958) inspired a sense of wonder, consumer abundance, boundless prosperity as well as fraud and widespread criminal consumption.

Since its creation in the 1950s, the payment cards business entered a relentless race of sometimes successful and quite often failed innovations of cashless technologies. One of these great failures was the first electronic purses by Mondex (1991) and VisaCash (1996). Although very promising, electronic cash failed to take off. These...