| In the European supermarket, instead of money, cashiers willingly accept bank checks, issued by the buyer. If you are traveling abroad, to avoid the risk of carrying cash, you can take "American Express" checks, which can be used for paying hotel bills and in the bank. And if you urgently need to make a payment to a friend who lives in another city, you can dictate a card's PIN code of replenishing an account of a mobile operator to your friend for repaying the debt.
Bank check "American Express" the check and pin code of the card are not money but private payment obligations. Nevertheless, they may well serve as a mode of payment since they have very real value. And now imagine the same check, similar to an American Express check, is released recently in electronic format and has a digital signature. This would be the unit for an electronic payment system.
Add a special storage area for these checks in the form of a computer file, reliably coded with the help of modern cryptography. This will be your "e-wallet". Add some programs, which shall forward your payment units between e-wallets along encrypted channels, then - organizations, that ensure that your "electronic" money will be, upon first request from you, exchanged for "regular" money as per the guaranteed exchange rate. This is the electronic payment system.
However, knowledge on the electronic payment system is of no use to the conventional client. From his point of view, everything is much simpler. He knows that his computer or mobile phone supports a special Java program, which gives him access to an e-wallet, in which his or his client's money is available - let it be even electronic money. He knows that presently electronic money can be used to purchase the same things, which can be purchased using conventional money, but at a greater convenience. And, he makes purchases.
However, this is not the only power and appeal of electronic money. What electronic money can do and any other payment method cannot do is the instant transfer of money between individuals at any time and anywhere with a minimum extra charge/commission.
And if a friend, for instance, relocated for sometime to Namibia? Or if a grandfather, living in Europe, urgently required financial help? Of course, there are many ways to transfer cash, starting from a bank transfer and ending with the transferring of money through somebody - all this procedures are troublesome, inconvenient, time-consuming and not possible always and everywhere.
If a friend or grandfather has an e-wallet, then you can transfer any amount to them, even millions of dollars, very quickly. For this, even internet access is not required. Unlike the payment process for goods and services, it is sufficient to have a regular telephone for transferring the money directly between two e-wallets.
One more attractive feature of electronic payments - their easy adaptability to local laws and thus - minimum bureaucratic procedures while using the electronic payment method. For example, while transferring any amount of "electronic cash", no permission for carrying out this operation is required which is equal to other less-significant papers. From the point of view of law, you are not transferring the money, not currency but private e-checks, for sending them abroad, you don't have to take any permission (as in the case of sending "American Express" checks for which permission is not required).
All of these unique features of electronic payments have led to the formation of a whole new type of public relations before our eyes. Now, people can not only to communicate with each other regardless of distance and borders but also make real deals across the ocean with the same ease as if they are living in neighboring apartments. Today, programmers, journalists, writers, artists, designers, consultants sell the yields of their labor to customers at any point of the world and instantly receive payment for their work. And this phenomenon is not just a mass but a universal phenomenon. |
Unlike other currencies, US banknotes design rarely changes through the years except for some security features. Other countries redesign their money on a regular basis , but the American dollar has not truly been redesigned since about the 1930s. Besides our great 'rival', the Euro, looks so spanky in comparison it seems the only clear way to revive this global recession is to rebrand and redesign.
