"end party" as both receiver and the sender of funds. "provider" parties who are providing access to the payment systems to end users and/or other providers.
Two core US payments systems, cash and checking operate on a virtual basis.
clearing house federal reserve bank payment systems american banker bis
In 1853, the first clearing house was established in new York city. Banks joined the clearing house and brought, on every banking day, deposited checkes draown on other member banks. The clearing house facilitated an orderly exchange of checks among the banks, and importantly calculated the net settlement for each bank. The banks then funded or drew from their settlement accounts. Soon similar clearing houses were established in other major cities, as were schemes for inter-city, regional, and national exchanges of checks between clearing houses.
The card industry as we know it today, began in 1966 when Bank of America formed a company, BankAmerica service corporation, to franchise its BankAmericard to other banks. Bank of America had launched BankAmericard in the late 1950s, planning to roll it out across California; in the mid 1960s it began licensing BankAmericard to other banks located outside of California and in a handful of other countries. By 1970, the franchisees began pressing for a new organizational structure fo r the product, leading the formation of National BankAmericard Inc. (NBI) to manage the international card program. shortl, the two organizations came together becoming VISA international and NBI becoming Visa U.S.A a group member of Visa international.
Card acquiring was not nearly as profitable as card issuing.
In the late 1960s, in paralell with the growth of credit cards, banks began to introduce ATMs as new channel for serving checking account customers.
The authoriztion transaction is in real time, with sub-second response times. The clearing and settlement transaction occurs in batch, most typically at the end of the day.
Card volume by type looks very different if you look at transaction count vs transaction amount. Debit transactions exceed credit transactions by count, but are less by amount due to the higher "average ticket" on credit cards vs debit cards. Debit cards are usually used for "everyday spend" - lower value purchases- while credit cards continue to be used for higher-value purchases, travel, entertainment.