E-Payment System
An Electronic Payment System, also known as E-Payment System or Online Payment System allows processing any cashless payment through electronic methods.
E-Payment Methods
E-Payment methods include:
1. Credit Payment System:
- Credit Card: to collect credit card payments through the internet Merchants require an Internet Merchant Account (IMA) and a Payment Service Provider (PSP).
- E-Wallet: a prepaid account that stores personal data online such as credit and debit card information in order to facilitate payments. They can be server or client device based.
- Smart card: is a plastic card similar in size to a credit card, it has an embedded microprocessor that can be loaded with large amounts of data.
2. Cash Payment System:
Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT): is a computerized system used to do money transfers between bank accounts.
EFT comprises many other concepts:
- Direct Debit: an instruction given by the account holder to the bank to collect a specific amount of money from his current account.
- e-Check: an electronic transfer of funds in which the money is taken from a bank account, typically a checking account.
- Electronic billing: the practice through which companies collect payments over electronic methods.
- Electronic cash (e-Cash): also known as digital cash, it is the storage of monetary values in moderate amounts on a client device (generally the user’s PC) and is used for internet transactions.
- E-commerce Loyalty Programs: programs that through rewards aim at encouraging loyal buying behavior. There are many different strategies to increase loyalty such as points cards, raffles, discounts, prizes, upgrades, freebies, etc.
- Stored-value card: is a card variety that has a fix amount of money encoded into it. It is normally anonymous and has an expiration date. The most common example of stored value cards are gift cards.
- Automated Clearing House (ACH) network: is the national scheme for electronic transactions in the United States, its distinctiveness is that it process both direct debits and credit card payments in the country.