My name is Ahmed Siddiqui, and I am the author of The Evolution of the Swipe. This is a follow-up to the best selling book in payments and fintech, The Anatomy of the Swipe, which over the past 6 years has educated payments and fintech professionals from all over the world, including engineers and product managers at Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Block, Stripe, Marqeta, Adyen, Shopify, and Chime.

A lot has changed in the past 6 years. The reality is that we aren’t swiping cards anymore. Payments have become even more digital, and is enabling a whole new class of innovative companies to emerge. The swipe isn’t truly dead; it has evolved.

One of the most fascinating things I learned in the past 6 years, getting feedback from the readers of The Anatomy of the Swipe, is that you don’t necessarily need to be a working professional in the payments field. A 10 year old girl picked up the book and was imagining a world with digital payments, and an NBA player also picked it to figure out innovative ways of giving back to the needy.

I thought it would be important in my new book to talk about how the swipe is being digitized to provide more convenient ways to pay that are fast and secure. We’ll discuss how card tokenization works, the rise of ApplePay and GooglePay, digital wallets, and finally how these technologies are helping merchants and consumers in an ever digital world.

You will love this book if you are a fintech product manager/engineer, building new digital banking experiences, or if you are a product manager/engineer for a retailer, wanting to speed up checkout online or in person.

I’ve been working in this space now for 10 years, having been an early team member at Marqeta, where we built card issuing/processing from scratch, to moving to being an early team member at Branch where we are revolutionizing the way workers get paid.

By no means would I consider myself an expert in the field, but I hope to explain some of these concepts to you by using a series of stories and comics. It’s a complex topic, but I think we can make it fun and enjoyable, and I hope to inspire you to build the next big innovation in payments by picking up this new book.

While I still believe that every great company is a payments company, I now believe that everyone has the ability to build these great payments companies.

The Evolution of the Swipe is a nonfiction book that speaks to Product Managers and Engineers at Payments and Fintech companies who are looking at ways to offer more digital payment methods to their customers.

The book is written in 4 Parts:

• Part 1 contains a deep dive into how the payments ecosystem is digitizing and evolving. Including a deep look at how tokenization works and its benefits. How does ApplePay and Google Pay work?
• Part 2 looks at how consumers are utilizing this digitization of payments in their daily lives, especially in a post-Covid world, where tapping and contactless is the norm.
• Part 3 dives into how merchants are making the payments experience appear invisible, blending in-person and online transactions through the use of apps.
• Part 4 expands these experiences and imagines what the future holds for payments by looking at emerging technologies such as Stablecoins, Crypto, Flexible Credentials, and Agentic Commerce.

My Publishing Journey: Where Your Support Goes

I’m publishing The Evolution of the Swipe with the support of Manuscripts Press, an innovative publisher that provides me with a full publishing team to bring this book to life. This summer, I’m working closely with:

• A revisions editor, copy editor, and proofreader to refine and elevate every story in the book
• A marketing strategist to help me connect with new audiences and make the book’s message reach those who need it most.
• A cover artist and layout editor who will ensure the final product is visually stunning and professionally produced.

Other Ways to Support Me

Some people just can’t contribute, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help:

• Please share my presale campaign on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn with your friends, family and network. Please use #evolutionoftheswipe and tag me so we can help amplify your efforts.
• Please recommend my book to five (5) friends, family members, or co-workers who you think would enjoy it via text or direct message on social media.

Thank you so much for all of your love and support!

Ahmed Siddiqui

About the Author 

Ahmed Siddiqui leads Product at Branch, revolutionizing how workers get paid. Prior to Branch, Ahmed served as one of the earliest Product Managers and a VP of Product at Marqeta. He helped build the modern card issuance platform from the ground up.

Along with building the next wave of fintech startups, Siddiqui is the author of the best-selling book, The Anatomy of the Swipe, which has been used as an onboarding tool for companies like Marqeta, Visa, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Block.

He’s also been recognized on the Product 50, the definitive list of the top global product leaders developing boundary-breaking, business-making products. When he’s not building the next innovation in fintech and payments, he can be found building Gundam models, or helping Voltron form his head.