Electronic payment methods

Updating traditional transactions

Typical modern consumer uses different methods to pay for goods and services like cash, credit and personal checks. Internet based electronic commerce methods also focus on secure transmission of credit card information, electronic checking and digital currencies.

Adapting existing methods

- Credit cards are the easiest method of the three to adapt to online transactions in part because people are already accustomed to using them remotely, whether for telephone transactions or for mail orders. Credit card transactions simply require that the consumer provide a valid credit card number and expiration date when placing an order that information can be and often has been provided through standard Internet applications like e-mail. This exposes credit card to eavesdropper monitoring for sequences of digits specific to credit cards along the message’s route.

Adapting cash for user over an open network is considerably harder in part because most people associate cash with the physical exchange of currency but doing so makes it possible to spend anonymously.

Checking across a network is conceptually simpler to grasp because the check itself is simply a document with very specific information (bank, account number, payee and amount) which has been signed by account holder. Turning a hard copy check into an electronic check requires that it must be transmitted securely and signed digitally. In some ways the process is similar to digitizing cash but is simpler because there is no need to even consider the anonymity of person writing the check.