Design Payment System
Last Updated: December 30, 2025
A payment system is the infrastructure that enables the transfer of money between parties, typically from a buyer to a seller, in exchange for goods or services.
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At its core, a payment system coordinates the flow of funds across multiple financial institutions, handles various payment methods (credit cards, bank transfers, digital wallets), and ensures that transactions are processed securely, reliably, and in compliance with financial regulations.
Popular Examples: Stripe, PayPal, Square, Braintree
This problem tests your understanding of distributed systems, consistency guarantees, failure handling, and real-world business constraints. Payment systems have zero tolerance for errors, making them an excellent test of a candidate's ability to reason about reliability.
In this article, we will explore the high-level design of a payment system similar to Stripe.
Let's start by clarifying the requirements.