Electronic Payment Systems

The Internet and World Wide Web have dramatically boosted interest in network payment systems and digital cash and increased their significance. The technical challenges are tougher because payment systems must now work over worldwide open networks and serve new kinds of businesses and payment models now made possible. The opportunities have attracted a wide range of players, from big and established organisations such as Mastercard, Visa, Microsoft, and the major banks, to newcomers such as CyberCash, DigiCash, First Virtual, and Millicent, to name only a few. Secure bank card systems suitable for the Internet are coming into place but they are unlikely to meet all requirements. There will be more than one way of paying for something on the Internet.

	Credit Cards		Smartcards
	Secure Electronic Transaction		Ecash and Ecash Coins

Privacy and the consequences of technology

Some forms of electronic money make it possible to completely monitor the details and history of an individual's expenditure and pose a threat to individual privacy on a scale never seen before. It is too soon to predict what consumers will accept in the market (and what some governments will allow).

Digital Signatures

Digital signatures are used to detect unauthorized modifications to data and to authenticate the identity of the user who generates the signature. In addition, the recipient of signed data can use a digital signature in proving to a third party that the signature was in fact generated by the signer of the data. This is known as nonrepudiation since the signer of data cannot, at a later time, repudiate the signature.

Why a digital monetary system is important

If all that digital cash permits is the ability to trade and store dollars, francs, and other governmental units of account, then we have not come very far. Even the major card associations, such as Visa and MasterCard, are limited to clearing settling governmental units of account. For in an age of inflation and government ineptness, the value of what is being transacted and saved can be seriously devalued. Who wants a hard drive full of worthless "cash"? True, this can happen in a privately-managed digital cash system, but at least then it is determined by the market and individuals have choices between multiple providers.