Payment Solution Architect

Architecture for payments: hubs, gateways, integration, data, security, resilience and real-time design.

Who this is for

A solution architect or senior engineer designing payment platforms.

Experience level: Senior engineer or architect, 8 to 15+ years. A solution architect or senior engineer designing payment platforms.

What you will be able to do

• Design payment hubs, gateways and real-time platforms.
• Choose integration, data, security and resilience patterns.
• Defend an architecture to engineering and risk.

Prerequisites

The Technical Business Analyst pathway, or equivalent engineering or architecture experience in payments.

Recommended sequence

Work through the chapters in this order. Within each chapter, complete the core lessons listed.

1. What money is (All lessons)
   Money and payments: the foundation.
2. Accounts and balances (All lessons)
   Accounts and balances: the account model the architecture must serve.
3. Ledger, posting and reconciliation (All lessons)
   Ledger, posting and reconciliation: booking entries per message.
4. Payment Hub Architecture (All lessons)
   Payment hub architecture, the introduction.
5. Payment Gateway Architecture (All lessons)
   Payment gateway architecture.
6. System Design Deep Dive (All lessons)
   System design deep dive.
7. Payment Hub: Enterprise Architecture (All lessons)
   Payment hub enterprise architecture, the advanced companion to ch25.
8. Payment engine internals and observability (All lessons)
   Payment engine internals and observability.
9. Banking Integration Patterns (All lessons)
   Banking integration patterns.
10. API design standards and integration patterns (All lessons)
    API design standards and integration patterns.
11. Payment Data Model and Mapping (All lessons)
    The payment data model and mapping.
12. Payment Operations Architecture: State, Resilience and Control (All lessons)
    Payment operations architecture: state, resilience and control.
13. Payment Security (All lessons)
    Payment security.
14. GDPR, BSA/AML and operational resilience (All lessons)
    GDPR, BSA/AML and operational resilience: the resilience and compliance the architecture must satisfy.
15. Real-Time Payments Architecture (All lessons)
    Real-time payments architecture.
16. Clearing Concepts and Netting (All lessons)
    Clearing concepts and netting: the D07 settlement core.
17. Liquidity Management (All lessons)
    Liquidity management: the D07 settlement core.
18. Settlement design and failure (All lessons)
    Settlement design and failure: the D07 settlement core.
19. Payment Platform Architecture and Your Career (Lessons 1-3)
    Payment platform architecture.
20. How 10 Large Banks Do Payments (All lessons)
    How 10 large banks do payments.
21. Embedded finance and ISO 20022 data analytics (All lessons)
    Embedded finance and ISO 20022 data analytics.

Simulators and labs

• Hub Architecture Simulator
• API Playground
• State Machine Simulator
• T2/TIPS Simulator
• Lifecycle Simulator

Assessments

• Architecture Test
• APIs and Integration Test
• Operations Test

Capstone: Payment hub architecture document

Design a payment hub architecture for a bank.

Deliverable: A payment hub architecture document: the components, how a payment flows through them, the integration points, the data model, the resilience and disaster recovery design, and the trade-offs.

Completion criteria

• Finish every core lesson in the sequence.
• Pass the Architecture, APIs and Operations tests with 70% or more.
• Complete the required simulator exercises.
• Submit the payment hub architecture document.