Electronic Currency

Electronic currency (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems.

E-micro payment system is small online payment company. There are five types of them, such as:

a) Firstgate's click and buy
Firstgate works with about 3,000 providers of articles, information, games, and other content for 2.5 million customers, mostly in Europe. For security, Firstgate uses passwords and secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption, similarly records the IP addresses of buyers’ machines for reference in case problems occur. The company charges content providers an up-front fee—which varies based on the complexity of the project—for set-up, integration, and consulting. It tailors its systems with business rules for each participating merchant. The company bills buyers’ credit cards, debit cards, or phone accounts, once they have accrued a few dollars in charges. North American customers can buy material via a charge to their bank accounts. It aggregates consumer micropurchases across merchants to enable a single processing of multiple transactions. This reduces processing costs, per-purchase credit card fees, and administration. Firstgate then remits money to merchants via checks or bank transfers.

Firstgate's Click & Buy now accepted in European iTunes Music Stores(C)1994-2005 M2 Communications Ltd. Apple has announced the launch of Firstgate's Click & Buy payment option for European iTunes Music Store customers, offering the ability to purchase music, audio books and gift certificates via debit card, direct debits, invoice or bank transfer. In addition, the company has launched its affiliate programme across Europe.

b) Payloadz

PayLoadz works with about 1,000 merchants and generates about $3 million per year in revenue. Rather than having prepaid accounts with PayLoadz, users pay sellers directly through PayPal, which also verifies that the buyers have enough money in their accounts to make the purchase. Merchants pay PayLoadz a flat monthly fee based on their sales levels, rather than a percentage of each transaction.

PayLoadz delivers files via a secure server to the customer using PayPal’s Instant Payment Notification system, which lets vendors integrate PayPal with their back-end operations. Buyers never see a PayLoadz interface. The payloadz system consists of an application server that hosts the website and handles transaction processing, a file storage, delivery server and a database server. Separating the componets into servers tuned for specific roles improves performance and reliability.

c) Paystone technologies
Customers in North America, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe can access Web content after setting up prepaid Paystone accounts by mailing funds directly to the company using their bank’s bill payment service or by depositing cash at any Bank of America branch. Merchants that sell content via Paystone create links to the e-micro-payment system. Customers follow the links, enter their Paystone password, and are redirected back to the content they want to purchase. For security, Paystone uses 128-bit SSL encryption.


d) Peppercoin
Massachusetts Institute of Technology cryptography expert Ron Rivest and fellow MIT computer scientist Silvio Micali founded Peppercoin. Buyers at participating Web sites who want to use Peppercoin see the e-micropayment technology’s interface, which looks like a common credit card interface, noted Bob Nix, the company’s vice president of engineering. The application’s new version, Peppercoin 2.0, doesnot require pre-enrollment or predeposit of funds. Consumers just enter their credit or debit card information with the merchant online as usual, and Peppercoin processes the transaction. The application uses a universal aggregation technique to efficiently process many small interactions between multiple consumers and merchants as a few large transactions.


The company uses RSA BSAFE software to provide encryption and digital signing capabilities for the security of a buyer’s information and the transaction’s integrity. Digital signatures can authenticate a message’s sender’s identity and verify that no one has altered the original content. To reduce overhead on small transactions, Peppercoin uses an online self-service customer-service module.

e) Digicash
DigiCash Inc. was a pioneering electronic currency corporation founded by David Chaum in 1990. DigiCash transactions were unique in that they were anonymous due to a number cryptographic protocols developed by its founder. DigiCash declared bankruptcy in 1998, and subsequently sold its assets to eCash Technologies, another digital currency company, which was acquired by InfoSpace on Feb. 19, 2002.

Digicash’s mission is to create a new personalized dimension to the shopping experience. We transform online incentives into powerful new tools, establishing a strong, high-value connection between consumers and ecommerce companies. The Digicash Wallet, our first product, gives merchants a revolutionary new approach for initiating real-time, value-creating coupons and promotions to increase sales, margins, and customer loyalty.Consumers are embracing the Digicash Wallet because it’s fun, easy, convenient and personalized to their shopping needs. Capture the benefit of rising coupon usage without sacrificing profits!

Hope that online payment makes our lives easier and more fun!