ePSO Discussion starter no. 1 - May 2003

E-payments: what are they and what makes them different?

by Kimmo Soramäki and Benjamin Hanssens

The aim of this paper is to work towards a common understanding of the concepts related to e-payments. It first discusses what constitutes a payment in general and then goes on to consider e-payments.

The paper puts forward two questions for discussion in the ePSO forum:

What are e-payments, i.e. are the proposed definitions meaningful and adequate?
What makes e-payments different, i.e. what distinguishes them from normal payments?

download paper [pdf, 5 pages]