Responsibility Exists Before You Write Code
Most teams think responsibility begins when the system is deployed.
In payment systems, that’s already too late.
Responsibility begins the moment you decide to move money.
The Common Mistake
Teams often treat:
Legal considerations
Compliance requirements
Responsibility definitions
as things to handle later.
In reality, they are preconditions — not optional steps.
Ignoring them doesn’t remove responsibility. It only delays the consequences.
What Responsibility Really Includes
In payment systems, responsibility expands beyond typical software concerns:
Who controls the funds
Who can authorize transactions
What happens when things go wrong
Who absorbs financial loss
Who responds to incidents
These are not technical details — they are core system properties.
The Role of Developers
A common misconception is that developers are not responsible because they don’t own the business or funds.
In reality, developers shape responsibility by:
Defining system behavior
Designing authority boundaries
Implementing payment flows
Creating operational constraints
Poor design can silently transfer risk to others.
What Must Be Defined First
Before writing any code, you must answer:
Who owns the funds at each stage?
Who can move money?
Who responds to failures?
Who bears financial loss?
What assumptions are explicitly excluded?
If these are unclear, the system is not ready to be built.
Key Insight
Documentation is not bureaucracy in payment systems — it is a control mechanism.
Without it, the system is not just incomplete. It is unsafe.
This article is based on ideas from the book “Banking-Grade Digital Payments: Architecture, Custody, and Operational Responsibility for Irreversible Payment Systems”, available on Amazon.