  Payments architectures are on the verge of a great bifurcation that must be
documented in order to be debated. Google is moving towards a quasi bank while
Apple and Google disseminate payment systems over smartphones. At the same
time, block chain might become a distributed ledger introducing a radical new
model of trusted third-party. The detailed history of credit card systems helps
understand why the game of security has always been trigged by a delegation
process of the risk to third parties and by the cat-and-mouse game of security
and fraud. Technologies were designed to solve these issues but have always
been closely related to innovations in institutional assemblages. These
payments systems shape our social life and the stakes of trust that we put in
these architectures require a truly political examination.
