Electronic Payments: Where Do We Go from Here?

Currently, the Internet and the World Wide Web on-line business is booming, with traffic, advertising and content growing at sustained exponential rates. However, the full potential of on-line commerce has not been possible to realize due to the lack of convenient and secure electronic payment methods (e.g., for buying e-goods and paying with e-money). Although it became clear very early that it is vital for payments to be safe and efficient, and to avoid requiring complicated user intervention, it is still the case that the Internet payment method of choice today is that of traditional credit cards. Despite their widespread use and market penetration, these have a number of significant limitations and shortcomings, including lack of security, lack of anonymity, inability to reach all audiences due to credit requirements, large overhead with respect to payments, and the related inefficiency in processing small payment amounts. These limitations (some of which are present in the real world) prompted the design of alternative electronic payment systems very early in the Internet age – even before the conception of the World Wide Web. Such designs promised the security, anonymity, efficiency, and universal appeal of cash transactions, but in an electronic form. Some early schemes, such as the one proposed by First Virtual, were built around the credit card structure; others, such as the scheme developed by DigiCash, offered a solution with cryptographic security and payer anonymity. Still others, such as Millicent, introduced micropayment solutions. However, none of these systems managed to proliferate in the marketplace, and most have either ceased to exist or have only reached a limited audience. This paper is associated with a panel discussion whose purpose is to address the reasons why the international e-commerce market has rejected proposed solutions, and to suggest new ways for electronic payments to 2 Markus Jakobsson, David MRaihi, Yiannis Tsiounis, and Moti Yung be used over the Internet, avoiding the problems inherent in credit card transactions. The purpose of this paper is to set the stage for such a discussion by presenting, in brief, some of the payment schemes currently available and to discuss some of the basic problems in the area.