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Caslon's online guides
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the Web | governance | being digital | new economy | dot com books | connecting | copyright | taxation | money | e-capital | security | censorship | who's dot who | media | news sources | design | accessibility | publishing | marketing | metrics | consumers | privacy | technologies Payment online for goods and services is a major question for electronic commerce. If you want expert financial advice we strongly recommend that you consult good accountants and lawyers. You may also wish to examine some of the documents on sites identified below. We will be adding to this guide in coming weeks, to provide a comprehensive resource for exploring issues and developments in Australia and overseas. Why not contact us to discuss access to Caslon's extensive research and assistance in developing strategies to make the most of opportunities online.
Our Taxation guide provides pointers to taxation of online purchases, suggestions for a 'byte tax' and other matters. The 'e-capital' guide deals with venture capital, investment angels and government funding. The Bank of International Settlements has recently released a detailed survey of electronic money developments. Because such systems are generally being designed to operate internationally and in multiple currencies, it will be difficult to determine the applicability of jurisdictional authority. As a result, "the apparent and immediate erosion of international financial borders ... mandates enhanced cooperation and efforts among international entities to ensure that there are consistent policies and standards", since if one country has "extensive laws and regulations and another has none the illicit money will merely move to the weakest link". Such issues were explored in Henry Perritt's paper on Jurisdiction & the Internet, in the collection Borders In Cyberspace (Cambridge, MIT Press 97) edited by Brian Kahin & Charles Nesson and in the landmark Global Business Regulation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 00) by John Braithwaite and Peter Drahos. An overview of electronic money Consumer Protection, Law Enforcement, Supervisory & Cross Border Issues is provided in the Group of Ten paper. Other G10 and BIS papers include those on
Among global proposals the Joint Electronic Payment Initiative (JEPI) is a joint project involving the World Wide Web Consortium, CommerceNet and individual industry partners in exploring the process that takes place, typically, after shopping and before actual payment begins. This is the point in time where the exact payment instrument (credit card, debit card, electronic check, electronic cash, etc.) must be agreed upon between the browsing client and the merchant server, and then, the transaction can take place. Contributors to The Future of the Electronic Marketplace (Cambridge, MIT Press, 98), edited by Derek Leebaert, explore business-to-business connectivity, the revolution in finance, payment systems, regulatory issues, retailing and communications infrastructure developments. Global Economic Commerce: Theory & Case Studies (Cambridge, MIT Press 99) by J Christopher Westland and Theodore Clark is an excellent introduction to the economy as a whole and to specific areas such as electronic auctions and digital shopfronts. It's refreshingly free of hype and the case studies are pertinent, unlike most of the dot com books. We've noted Dan Schiller's provocative Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System (Cambridge, MIT Press 99) in writings about the future of the Web. The Australian Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (ETA) is perhaps the major achievement of the national government's 'strategic framework for the information economy' under the coordination of the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), giving electronic transactions involving Commonwealth government agencies the same status as those using paper. Because most contract law is a state responsibility, the Act is to be 'mirrored' by complementary state legislation. As yet, similar acts have come into effect in Victoria and NSW; further progress is likely to be slow. There's a useful one-volume discussion in The Law of Payment Systems (sydney, Butterworths 00) by Alan Tyree & Andrea Beatty. ETA reflects changes to the Evidence Act during the past decade - the law now looks more kindly on newfangled technology such as the photocopier - and the Electronic Commerce Expert Group's 1998 Electronic Commerce: Building the Legal Framework report, that embraced electronic signatures, record-keeping, contracts, the UNCITRAL model code for ecommerce, and other matters. The Attorney-General's Department has an e-Commerce Homepage, primarily concerned with the ETA. The slow pace of electronic commerce reform at the national and state/territory levels has been speeded up by overseas developments. In the US the Electronic Signatures In Global & National Commerce Act has just been signed by President Clinton and will come into effect in October this year. The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has proposed a model code for ecommerce, to be reflected in national legislation and practice across the globe. Information about the code is available on the UNCITRAL website In Europe the European Commission late last year published a proposal for a Directive to "establish a coherent legal framework for electronic commerce across the EU". Information about the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is available on that body's website. For a perspective on the negotiating process, the players and likely outcomes we recommend the excellent Global Business Regulation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 00) by John Braithwaite and Peter Drahos. Elsewhere in the guides we've pointed to the American Bar Association's excellent site exploring global jurisdiction issues. A paper of particular interest is that by Alan Tyree on Computer Money - Legal Considerations. The major news in July was the plan for establishment of a new online bank, associated or otherwise with a new telco, under the leadership of Melbourne's Lloyd Williams. We'll be tracking progress of the new venture but in the meantime we note that online banking can be an excellent way to lose lots of the green stuff. In the US, for example, Citigroup's online arm spent US$527 million last year (up from US$378 m and US$236 m in preceding years). Its net loss, no pun intended, increased to US$179 m (from US$143 m and US$94 m), on revenues of US$223 m. That's a lot of money, even if Citi is buying market share. The home pages of some of the major Australian financial institutions are:
We will be providing a more comprehensive list in future. A concise introduction to some of the issues facing banks going online is provided by Christian Bauer in Opportunities & Challenges of Electronic Distribution Channels in the Retail Banking Industry, a September 1999 paper at the Curtin Business School. Among Australian and overseas academic institutions concerned with electronic commerce the following may be of interest to readers of this guide. The Wharton Forum on Electronic Commerce at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania (giving Harvard Business School a run for its money in producing MBAs) has useful pointers to recent market studies and other research, although note that much of the material is restricted to Wharton affiliates. The eLab at Vanderbilt University is headed by Donna Hoffman & Tom Novak. The site includes excellent papers and numerous links. MIT's eCommerce centre offers links to a number of good studies by Ariely, Brynjolfsson and others. The Hermes project at the University of Michigan is primarily of interest for its Web user surveys. The Centre for Electronic Commerce at Monash University seems, alas, to have gone to sleep. We're hoping it will wake up before the next millennium. The first electronic based transaction systems were credit cards and automatic teller machine (ATM) cards based on a magnetic stripe that allowed the user to gain access to a line of credit or bank account. Shortly thereafter magnetic stripe cards that could store value were developed. The addition of microchip technology to cards increased the storage, security and applicability of the cards. The stored value card (Smart Card) is both an access device and a self contained store of value. Internet-based payment systems use the Internet to facilitate financial transactions with other users. However, the personal computer which serves as the user's interface with an internet payment system can also store value and is therefore, both an access device and self contained store of value. We are in the process of adding pointers to digital cash, smart cards and online payment systems. For the moment an excellent introduction is provided by the electronic money bibliography at Exeter University. The US Smart Card Forum is an industry body concerned with credit card sized devices that act as rechargeable electronic purses and, in more sophisticated versions, can hold digital signatures, medical records and other data. The UK-based Mondex has attracted a number of Australian partners, although so far with uncertain success. Among the slew of books and articles
about new currency systems - we sometimes think more money's being made
from publishing than from doing - Digital Money (New York, Wiley
96) by Cybercash
chairman Daniel Lynch and Leslie Lundquist provides an excellent
introduction to digital money products and associated issues such as
authentication, cryptography and ecommerce standards. Seth Godin's Presenting
Digital Cash (Indianapolis, Sams.net Publishing 95) is more
journalistic.
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