E-commerce payment systems

One of the main requirements in e-commerce is the ability to accept a form of electronic payment. This form of electronic payment is referred to as financial electronic data interchange (FEDI). FEDI has become increasingly popular over the last number of years due to the widespread use of the internet based shopping and banking.

Credit Cards and Smart Cards

Over the years, credit cards have become one of the most common forms of payment for e-commerce transactions. In the early years of B2C, many consumers were apprehensive of using their credit cards over the internet because of fear that their credit card numbers would get stolen. However, due to increased security with credit card companies such as VISA, American Express, and MasterCard there is widespread use of credit card use over the internet, especially in North America.

Despite this widespread use in North America, there are still a number of countries such as China, India and Pakistan that have some problems to overcome in regard to credit card security. In the meantime, the use of smartcards has become extremely popular. A Smartcard is similar to a credit card; however it contains an embedded 8-bit microprocessor and uses electronic cash which transfers from the consumers’ card to the sellers’ device. A popular smartcard initiative is the VISA Smartcard. Using the VISA Smartcard you can transfer electronic cash to your card from your bank account, and you can then use your card at various retailers and on the internet.

Financial Cyber-mediaries

These are companies that enable financial transactions to transpire over the internet. Types of transactions include: C2C, C2B, and/or B2B. One of the best known and most successful financial cybermediaries is PayPal. This free online service allows consumers and/or businesses to send money to anyone with an email address in 45 countries. PayPal is accepted by thousands of businesses worldwide and is the preferred payment method on eBay.com. PayPal is now owned by ebay.com.

Many of the mediaries permit consumers to establish an account quickly, and to transfer funds into their online accounts from a traditional bank account (typically via ACH transactions), and "vice versa", after verification of the consumer's identity and authority to access such bank accounts. Also, the larger mediaries further allow transactions to and from credit card accounts, although such credit card transactions are usually assessed a fee (either to the recipient or the sender) to recoup the transaction fees charged to the mediary.

The speed and simplicity with which cyber-mediary accounts can be established and used have contributed to their widespread use, although the risk of abuse, theft and other problems—with disgruntled users frequently accusing the mediaries themselves of wrongful behavior—is associated with them.

Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment

Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) is a fairly new technique that allows consumers to view and pay bills electronically. There are a significant number of bills that consumers pay on a regular basis, which include: power bills, water, oil, internet, phone service, mortgages, car payments etc. EBPP systems send bills from service providers to individual consumers via the internet. The systems also enable payments to be made by consumers, given that the amount that appears on the e-bill is correct. Banks in Canada have been offering these online payment services for some time now, and are growing in popularity. Other service providers such as Rogers Communications and Aliant accept major credit cards within the bill payment sections of their websites. This service is in addition to the original EBPP method of a direct withdrawal from a bank account through a bank such as Scotiabank.

The biggest difference between EBPP systems and the traditional method of bill payment, is that of technology. Rather than receiving a bill through the mail, writing out and sending a check, consumers receive their bills in an email, or are prompted to visit a website to view and pay their bills.

Three broad models of EBPP have emerged. These are:

# Consolidation, where numerous bills for any one recipient are made available at one Web site, most commonly the recipient's bank. In some countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the postal service also operates a consolidation service. The actual task of consolidation is sometimes performed by a third party, and fed to the Web sites where consumers receive the bills. The principal attraction of consolidation is that consumers can receive and pay numerous bills at the one location, thus minimising the number of login IDs and passwords they must remember and maintain.
# Biller Direct, where the bills produced by an organisation are made available through that organisation's Web site. This model works well if the recipient has reasons to visit the biller's Web site other than to receive their bills. In the freight industry, for example, customers will visit a carrier's Web site to track items in transit, so it is reasonably convenient to receive and pay freight bills at the same site.
# Direct email delivery, where the bills are emailed to the customer's In Box. This model most closely imitates the analog postal service. It is convenient, because almost everyone has email and the customer has to do nothing except use email in order to receive a bill. Email delivery is proving especially popular in the B2B market in many countries.

Major providers of outsourced bill production services have developed facilities to process bills through consolidation, biller direct and email delivery services, thus enabling major billers to have all their bills, paper and electronic, processed through the one service. Niche service providers in many countries provide one or two of these models, but generally do not integrate with paper bill production.

Online Payment Systems Directory

[http://www.onlinepaysystems.info OnlinePaySystems] Its a directory of on-line payments systems. There you can find information about different systems, rate them, review, comment and discuss in the forum. There is attempt to implement the best trend technologies to get the best result. The project will be always under development and we going to improve it further based as well on our own ideas as on visitors suggestions.