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FREE online courses on ECOMMERCE FUNDAMENTALS - Electronic Payment Systems
- Electronic cash |
Electronic cash (e-cash), digital money or digital cash
provides the means to transfer money between parties over a network such as
the Internet. Electronic cash must satisfy some general properties of digital
money:
Electronic cash must not depend on its existence in any given
computer system or location.
It should not be reusable. For example, if you get electronic
cash for $50 and spend it to buy a shirt, then you cannot spend this money
again.
Electronic cash cannot provide information that can be used
to trace the previous owner of the cash. If you buy a product, there should be
nothing associated with the electronic cash that traces it to you.
It should be easily transferable from one person or party to
another. This should occur without leaving any trace of the person who has been
in possession of this money.
It must be available in several denominations. It must also
be divisible in a way similar to real cash. For example, 25 digital pennies
should yield a digital quarter and four digital quarters should equal a dollar.
It should be available in such a way so that it can be
securely stored at the consumer's hard drive or on a smart card (such as PCMCIA
card). Furthermore, it should be possible to transfer this electronic cash
between various types of parties on the Internet.
