Friday, February 24, 2006
E-commerce Needs E-payments
PayPal may have just past 100 million accounts, but electronic payment infrastructure is still far behind what is needed for secure and simple ecommerce. Last year PayPal processed more than $27 billion in total payments, which is a big number, but it isn't accepted at many large retailers and takes days to transfer funds.Another option is electronic payment company Click&Buy, which Skype just hooked up with to enable customers to load their Skype Wallets.
Banks do allow you to pay your bills electronically, and folks like Amazon enable you make to pay for things from your bank account, but that requires entering your routing number, and I'm just a tad uncomfortable giving out that information to all but the most trusted of sources.
The simplest solution would be for the banks themselves to get into the epayment biz without exposing your account numbers. I want one-click shopping where my bank does the authorizing that is just as easy as a credit card payment, and without having to worry that a hacker is going to clean out my account.
This would not make the credit card companies happy since they get to charge the retailers for each transaction, and also they get to charge double digit interest to all of the account holders.
If the banks don't compete with PayPal, perhaps
Wal-Mart will. The company wants to open a bank to handle electronic payments. Isn't being the world's largest retailer enough?
Posted By John Gartner at 02:33 PM
Permanent Link: E-commerce Needs E-payments
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