
Credit Card Offers
The Future of Money
The future of payments
over the Internet and offline rests in electronic
money. Think about all the times you want to park
your car but have no loose cash to use in the meter
or how the Internet could be transformed if you could
pay in small amounts. By having electronic cash small
payments can be made easily. Electronic cash is stored
in a smart card which looks just like a debit or credit
card with information stored in a microchip. Money
transfer between merchants and consumers is made easy
in that it is instant as it requires no bank authorisation.
The electronic smart card in theory is an electronic
purse which you put money into – except you
don’t have to actually handle the money. It
can be used by everyone including youths who do not
have bank accounts so they can also purchase goods
online. Value is held electronically in the electronic
‘purse’ and can hold in the form of all
currencies. You can transfer money from your bank
account onto your card easily and check the amount
on your card using a specially designed key ring.
Many companies have launched
eCash such as Mondex,
Digicash and VisaCash,
however none have as yet been successful. The main
reason for this is that they were not planned properly.
The technology behind the cards, the security and
everything involving the electric money was planned
down to a tee but they overlooked one element–
where people could use it. On launch they found that
the take up was extremely good but this soon dwindled
as people could not find hardly anywhere that accepted
the electronic money, online and offline. In order
for this plan to work you would need an electronic
cash facility everywhere – in every car park
and every shop. Until this is put in place the scheme
is rendered useless. Electronic cash companies are
reviewing their strategies and the next launch should
be more successful so watch this space. In the future
trying to find that elusive 20p to pay the parking
meter or the exact change for a bus journey will be
long forgotten.