Welcome to the modular version of our flagship course "ISO 8583 and Transaction Processing".

ISO8583 Module 3: Advanced

Continue your journey further into the exciting world of payment transactions with the 3rd module of our flagship course "ISO 8583 and Transaction Processing", and learn how to analyse payment messages and how follow a magstripe transaction from end to end.



The complete course puts you on a track to become an expert at understanding how payment transactions work, from terminal to issuer.

The 4 modules together build up our "ISO 8583 and Transaction Processing" course, and are equivalent to a 3- to 4-day course with a highly experienced instructor, and learning outcomes are reached with taught lessons, quizzes and 22 practical exercises for the guided parsing and analysis of many messages. 


ISO8583 Module 3 is a 7-hour technical course that teaches how to analyse payment messages and how to follow a magstripe transaction from end to end.

This 3rd module is quite technical, and can be taken by anyone with basic IT knowledge who wants to start a journey towards payment transaction expertise. We strongly advise completing Module 1 and 2 before taking this Module 3. 

Upon completion of this module, an "Advanced level" certificate is delivered to the student, which can be printed and shared on LinkedIn. 


All the video lessons come with English closed captions/subtitles, which have been automatically translated into the following languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Urdu.


If you want to understand the complete course structure, be sure to check the "ISO 8583 and Transaction Processing" course page: Visit now

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Watch Intro Video

Course presentation

Let the instructor tell you all about the course!

Unique learning approach

The learning path is one of increasing complexity, with building blocks to construct the ISO 8583 knowledge, and practical exercises and quizzes to keep students engaged. The complete course contains 22 practical exercises for the guided parsing and analysis of many messages.



The ISO8583 Module 3 course zooms out of the low-level structure of ISO 8583, and teaches students how to perform analyses of individual messages, starting with network management messages, really focusing on authorization request messages, and also looking at authorization advice, financial messages, and reversals. Practical exercises with many different transaction samples are provided to help the student construct real experience on message analysis.

The course then zooms out once more, and looks at the transactions from end to end. It follows ISO 8583 messages as they are generated by a payment terminal all the way to their authorization by a card issuer, going through the different message conversion processes, where the student can see the data elements that are converted, removed and added as the message is processed by each actor of the payment chain and potentially changes version of ISO 8583. Magstripe and contactless magstripe are covered.

Course curriculum

  • 1
    01. Message analysis
    • Course material
    • 01-01. Network management messages
    • 01-01. Practical exercises on Network management messages
    • 01-02. Authorization request messages - Part 1
    • 01-02. Practical exercises on Authorization request messages - Part 1
    • 01-03. Authorization request messages - Part 2
    • 01-03. Practical exercises on Authorization request messages - Part 2
    • 01-04. Authorization request messages - Part 3
    • 01-04. Practical exercises on Authorization request messages - Part 3
    • 01-05. Authorization advice messages
    • 01-06. Financial request messages
    • 01-06. Practical exercises on Financial request messages
    • 01-07. Financial advice messages
    • 01-07. Practical exercises on Financial advice messages
    • 01-08. Reversal messages
    • 01-08. Practical exercises on Reversal messages
    • Chapter 1 Quiz
  • 2
    02. End to End Magstripe transactions
    • 02-01. Domestic magstripe transaction
    • 02-02. Cross-border contactless magstripe transaction
    • Chapter 2 Quiz

Reviews of the complete course

  • Transaction processing

    Mphikeleli Zwane

    [Software Developer at Altech Card Solutions] Before taking this course, i had a little knowledge about transactions flow and processing from the merchants ...

    Read More

    [Software Developer at Altech Card Solutions] Before taking this course, i had a little knowledge about transactions flow and processing from the merchants terminal to the card issuer and the parties involved. This course made it easy for me to understand the processing of transaction within our company. with the help of this course, now i know the different message types, ISO 8583 message layout , fields and their meaning, different ISO 8583 message protocols. Without this course it would take me a year or so to understand the general flow of transactions from the Terminal to the issuer. i would recommend this course to anyone who works in Payment industry, it is easy to follow and understand.

    Read Less

  • Paytech Online Iso 8583:

    Justine Naidoo

    [Junior EMV Specialist in Standard Bank South Africa] It has been an incredible opportunity having to do the ISO 8583 ONLINE TRAINING, It was user friendl...

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    [Junior EMV Specialist in Standard Bank South Africa] It has been an incredible opportunity having to do the ISO 8583 ONLINE TRAINING, It was user friendly and straight to the point,easy to understand and it included very relevant information needed when working with ISO .I highly recommend that this course becomes a basis for all users of ISO, purely because of the content that touches on each and every ‘element ‘(no pun intended ) of the system.I enjoyed the interactive voice over that made it easier for me to understand as I am more of a listener than a reader 😊 .

    Read Less

  • Excellent Course

    Innocent Oketayot

    [Innocent Oketayot, Systems Administrator-Finance Trust Bank, Uganda] This is a great course. For such a highly complex topic as transaction processing, th...

    Read More

    [Innocent Oketayot, Systems Administrator-Finance Trust Bank, Uganda] This is a great course. For such a highly complex topic as transaction processing, the course was presented in such a simplified manner making it very easy to understand. The content is also quite comprehensive, covering all the bases I needed to advance in the world of transaction processing.

    Read Less

Who is the course intended for?

I built the course with the following audience in mind: people who need strong, technical, payment transaction processing knowledge to be effective and efficient in their work. This includes developers, QA, customer support and managers in the following areas:

  • Acquirer host
  • Payment processor switch
  • Issuer host
  • Payment terminal integration
  • Troubleshooting transaction failures for banks or acquirers
  • Chip card issuance
  • Consulting in any of the areas above


I hope you’ll enjoy taking this course as much as I enjoyed building it.

They already learnt with us:

  • StandardBank
  • ACS
  • ARCA

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Finish the learning journey

with the last follow-on module

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    ISO8583 Module 4: Expert

    Finish your journey into the exciting world of payment transactions with the last module of our course "ISO 8583 and Transaction Processing", and learn how to follow transactions with EMV, contactless and online PIN, and see how certification works.

    15 Lessons €400,00
    ISO8583 Module 4: Expert

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