New Challenges in Electronic Payments

While it’s essential for “intelligent enterprises” to deliver value added to their customers it’s getting increasingly important for them to consider new challenges in electronic payments. This is to meet the users’ requirements to pay in a secure, efficient and “easy to use” way, both in e-commerce and m-commerce. In the end, secure and efficient electronic payment systems are one of the most crucial elements of transactions in eand m-commerce. Currently, one can detect opacity for users because of the huge number of different payment systems and their different impact on the users’ individual requirements in different transaction situations posing them possible risks. Thus, assuring users of features such as convenience, low costs and privacy while conducting transactions may form the basis of competitive advantage for intelligent enterprises. This chapter presents an approach enabling users to evaluate possible risks related with electronic payment systems and hereby eliminating the above mentioned opacity. It highlights the definition of user requirements as a prerequisite for individual risk management. The solution introduced assists users in choosing a convenient payment system in the long term during individual portfolio-setup as well as in the short term while conducting payment transactions. INTRODUCTION With the growing number of digital transactions in eand m-commerce scenarios, Intelligent Enterprises’ Information and Communications Technology will be faced with This chapter appears in the book, Intelligent Enterprises of the 21st Century, edited by Jatinder Gupta and Sushil Sharma. Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033-1240, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING