Customer Efficient Electronic Cash Protocols

The technology of electronic cash makes it possible to transmit digital money over communication networks during electronic transactions. Owing to the untraceability and unforgeability properties, electronic cash can protect the privacy of customers and guarantee security of payments in the transactions. This paper introduces a customer-efficient electronic cash protocol where each customer only needs to store 1 coin for w dollars and transmit 1 coin for a w-dollar payment. Compared with traditional electronic cash protocols, the proposed method greatly reduces not only the storage required for the customers, but the communication traffic in the payments as well. Furthermore, the computation cost of each customer in the payment stage is greatly reduced by more than 99% as compared with other storage efficient electronic cash protocols. The proposed protocol is quite suitable for situations where storage and computation capabilities are limited, such as smart-card or mobile environments. In addition, both the problem of money laundering and the unlimited-growth problem of the bank's database, which records all spent coins for double-spending checking, are also considered in the proposed protocol. Especially, our basic idea is independent of the underlying cryptographic primitives such that it can be implemented by any public-key encryption, symmetric encryption, digital signature, and partially blind signature scheme.     

Evolution of the Payment Systems of London Clearing Banks

The London Clearing Banks (LCBs) have successfully used payment systems to establish a customer franchise, through which they have gained cheap retail deposits and provided lending and other services. Yet they have failed to price the service rationally. Market growth has dramatically increased the volume of payments, exacerbating the cost problem. To counter this, the LCBs have introduced additional payment mechanisms such as credit cards and Bankers' Automated Clearing Service (BACS); are introducing electronic fund transfer at point of sale (EFTPOS); and are further automating the existing cash and cheque-based system. The development of the clearing house, BA CS and EFTPOS demonstrates how payment systems impose co-operative policies to facilitate the transfer of funds and reduce costs, but such enforced co-operation ten& to lead to perfect competition, with uniform pricing policies. Competitors are in a strong position to operate more efficient and less expensive payments media for their customers. The dilemma facing the LCBs is therefore how to match this challenge and maintain their market position through further investment in payments technology, while maintaining their existing less efficient and more expensive payments media.     

Why do stored value systems fail?

Stored value systems are the most recent form of electronic payment technology. They are meant to coexist with credit and debit technology, by primarily targeting the low value area of the transaction market. Being targeted at low value transactions, they are designed to have very low transaction cost. Stored value systems rely on creating a form of electronic value, on smart cards or as computer files. Such value can be bought (withdrawn) at any one time, and spent in arbitrary fractions at later times. When the technology emerged for its first implementations in the first half of the 1990s, it was much celebrated as a replacement for cash with many benefits over existing payment technologies. Many of these systems have subsequently been set up as trials, and the commercial rollout of some systems has started. However, actual usage of stored value systems is still low, much lower than was expected by the operators of the systems. Several years after the first trials were implemented, it is still unclear whether and when they will play a relevant role in the payments system market. And none of the trials that have been run can be considered a commercial success. This makes it necessary not only to assess the technology, but also the commercial future and user uptake of these systems. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Retailers and their relationships with their financial services suppliers: the case of debit card charges in the United Kingdom

The mid 1990s has seen a very rapid growth in both the holding and use of debit cards in the UK. There are now just over 27 million debit cards issued in the UK under the marques Switch and Visa Delta. Debit card transactions immediately debit the account of the card holder. These transactions are acquired by a financial institution (the acquirer), who reimburses the retailer of the purchase sum minus a negotiated fee, the merchant service charge (MSC). In the UK the MSC is a fixed fee per transaction as opposed to credit card transactions that are levied as a percentage of the transaction value. The level of the fixed fee payments vary enormously from just a few pence for large corporate clients to anything up to 80 p for some small independent retailers. The authors of this paper were commissioned to undertake a research programme into retailer attitudes to card payment systems. This paper will outline the main implication of the research in terms of marketing the acquiring service to retailers and consequent relationship between acquirer and retailer. Relationship marketing can be seen as a return to a more traditional method of bank management, in terms of close relationships between banks and businesses. With the development of specialist sections and departments such as card services there may have been a more transactional marketing approach by the banks. Merchant acquirers should focus more attention on retention rather than recruitment and treat each customer as an individual. Factors other than price and technology, for example quality and customer service, should be emphasized to protect themselves from competition and to encourage long term customer loyalty.     

A replication study of the credit card effect on spending behavior and an extension to mobile payments

Prior research has shown that credit cards increase spending behavior as measured by the willingness to pay (WTP) or basket value. This research aims to replicate the credit card effect and to extend this effect to mobile payments. In four empirical studies, of which three online studies and one lab study (total n = 692), we manipulated payment methods (i.e., cash, credit cards, and mobile payments) and measured spending behavior (i.e., WTP and basket value). Across four studies, we did not replicate the credit card effect on either measure of spending behavior, suggesting the effect in the literature may be inflated or may have been fading away. A meta-analysis of the relevant literature revealed the expected credit card effect but also showed that the credit card effect has become weaker through the years and that this effect is contingent on the location of data collection. We also did not find evidence that the credit card effect extends to mobile payments on either measure of spending behavior in the three online studies. However, we found a significant difference between mobile payments and cash on the basket value measure (but not for the WTP measure) in the lab study. This paper also explored whether the pain of payment or payment convenience may be a mechanism underlying the relationship between payment methods and spending behavior. Although the pain of payment tended to be lower and the payment convenience tended to be higher for mobile payments, these effects did not translate into more spending behaviors.     

Empathic cultural consumers: Pay what you want in the theater

Pay what you want (PWYW) is an increasingly popular sales strategy in which consumers voluntarily decide how much to pay for a product or service. PWYW has often been described as an exercise in the “empathy economy,” where consumers' payment choices might be seen as empowered expressions of their tastes and preferences, and sellers have a stronger incentive for empathizing with them. Beyond their economic interest, PWYW experiences also deserve significant attention in the social sciences given that they challenge several key assumptions of rational choice and neoclassical economic theory, as well as conventional consumer behavior and pricing theories. This paper analyzes three plays performed at the Beckett Theater in Barcelona using PWYW with very profitable outcomes. Our analysis shows that socio-psychological factors, such as payments attributed to others and satisfaction with the play, are the best predictors of customer payments.     

未来超市 离我们有多远?

<正>成本是普通超市5倍,首家未来超市扩张、盈利面临难题。可曾想过:去超市购物时购物车可自己上电梯、包装全机器运作,甚至收银都无人工?近日,安徽乐城投资股份有限公司投资3000多万元打造的中国首家电子化未来超市正式开业。据悉,这家名为乐城超市采用20余项顶尖技术,成本相当于普通超市5倍,投资方希望3年内在安徽开设400家此类超市。业界认为,未来超市模式虽然新颖,但过高成本和消费者习惯使其扩张和盈利都面临难题。     

云服务!——互联网颠覆传统工业社会的开端

阿里和盛大两大平台的商业本质是:通过繁殖大量创业公司提供丰富的个性化产品,以满足市场上日益膨胀的个性化需求。其繁殖方式是为创业公司提供资金、推广、支付、物流、客服一整套服务,把自己的运营能力像水和电一样让外部随需使用。这就是云服务的商业模式。云服务的诞生前提是:互联网打破地域分割形成一个统一大市场,为个性化需求提供产品开始有利可图。其客观效果是:把创业成本降到最低,创业者只专注于创意等核心环节,运营和管理将不再重要。小公司开始挑战大公司,颠覆"规模制胜"的工业文明。我们的社会和文化将更加独立和自由。     

Mobile Commerce

Abstract

To Business-to-Consumer (B2C) companies, finding convenient and secure payment methods is crucial. While the most popular payment method in the United States is the credit card, the common methods in Japan are cash on delivery, transfer of payment into bank accounts, and postal money order. The paper presents such issues as why credit card payments have not become the mainstream payment method in Japan, the current situation of other payment methods, and the future mobile trend.     

The garage team—entrepreneurship lessons from DHL international

When you start a venture, you start with yourself: your own personal operating system, or POS. Then, you identify and define your compelling product or service, something you should already know a lot about. You also need to use your sales skills to convince key stakeholders to support you, and to design your venture by putting together a pattern that works. The next step is to put together a team to help you implement the pattern you have designed, the men and women who will make up your garage team. The garage team is made up of the core people in a start‐up, people who help graduate the entrepreneur to the role of leader, because a leader with no followers is a leader of none. This article explores the essential attributes of such a team and how they contribute to the success of entrepreneurial ventures. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

基于电子信用卡网上支付的安全电子交易（SET）协议的研究

安全电子交易协议是电子商务中基于信用卡支付系统最典型、最常用的国际标准,该协议定义了客户、商家、支付网关及金融机构之间数据的流通过程,并对这些信息流都采取了数字加密及数据认证技术,以此确保网上交易的安全。但它过于繁杂的程序使得系蔓号承粤过重的负载,这个问题如今越来越引起了专家们的关注,并成为未来研究改进的重点。     

Who Pays for Credit Cards?

The authors model side payments in a competitive credit‐card market. If competitive retailers absorb the cost of accepting credit cards by charging a higher goods price to everyone, then someone must subsidize convenience users of credit cards to prevent them from defecting to merchants who do not accept cards. The side payment could be financed by card users who roll over balances and pay interest. It is rational for them to do so if their subjective discount rates are high enough. Charging different prices to different customers based on the underlying cost of the payment instrument would be more efficient for retailers. However, banks may offer incentives to attract convenience users because some of them may become interest‐paying users (“revolvers”) in the future.     

Smart Cards in the Internet Commerce Era

Abstract

Smart cards are the latest wave in the world of electronic commerce. The latest development in smart cards technology is its Internet related applications, which are mostly related to the support of online payment systems and its infrastructure. This paper propels the role and potential impact of the smart card and provides insights on implementing new technologies. It is intended to develop plans and discuss solutions and navigate through the myriad of processing investment decisions impacting the anticipated widespread acceptance of the smart card in the Internet commerce era. Managerial implications for Internet commerce are addressed as well.     

Pricing of Payment Services: A Comparative Analysis of Paper-based Banking and Electronic Banking

This paper aims at comparing paper-based banking and electronic banking in terms of cost-efficiency and pricing. The focus is primarily on giro payments made manually by mail and electronically via the Internet, but also by cash over the counter. The paper presents principles of efficient pricing in terms of production fees and capacity fees. It also demonstrates that the current pricing of payment services in Norway and Sweden is far away from these principles as production fees are set below marginal costs while capacity fees are in many cases above capacity costs. Such deviations may stimulate customers to an excess demand for electronic payments while paper-based payments will be depressed.     

Jumpstarting the use of social technologies in your organization

How do you get your organization to start using social technologies to become more innovative and productive? Where and with whom should you begin? We interviewed over 70 managers across 30 companies and found that the most successful firms employ one of three jumpstart strategies, depending on the organization's mission, work processes, culture, and industry. Some start at the bottom of the organization, finding and enabling ‘young experimenters’ to use social technologies to enhance their individual productivity. Others start in the middle, finding and helping ‘corporate entrepreneurs’ in middle management to use social technologies to improve collaboration on teams and projects. Others begin at the top, finding ‘enlightened executives’ who are open to new technology and the potential of social tools to strengthen their organizational culture. We combine our research with concepts from change management, technology adoption, and social networks to suggest ways managers can best introduce social collaboration tools into their organizations.     

Misconceptions about Market Orientation

Given the benefits of a market orientation, why do so many organizations fail to become market-driven? One reason is confusion over what it means to be market-driven. Some organizations have become “customer compelled ” and try to respond to whatever their customers say they want, without exercising any discipline. Others argue that it is sometimes best to “ignore the customer.” This latter view finds listening to customers deficient as a guide to action. This is a misconception based on three false dichotomies: (1) that you can either lead or follow customers, (2) that you can't stay close to both current and potential customers, and (3) that a technology push can't be balanced with a market pull.     

The Impact of Electronic Payments for Vulnerable Consumers: Evidence from Social Security

Vulnerable consumers may face barriers to using electronic payments, especially consumers in “unbanked” households where no member has an account to receive payments. In March 2013, the US Social Security Administration transitioned exclusively to electronic payments, representing a large shift in payment mode mandated at the federal level. This study identifies the size and characteristics of the population impacted by this shift, by linking administrative data on Social Security payments to a nationally representative survey on the use of bank accounts and financial services. We find that the majority of unbanked Social Security recipients took up electronic payments well before the March 2013 deadline. The mandate does not appear to have increased the use of bank accounts. Instead, recipients used electronic payment cards. However, the transition to electronic payments was slowest among the most financially vulnerable households, suggesting a focus on these households as payment methods continue to develop.     

The counter-conventional mindsets of entrepreneurs

These days, it seems, nearly everyone aspires to be an entrepreneur. But many entrepreneurs think and act differently than the way in which most other businesspeople do and the way much of today’s business education encourages them to think and act. My in-depth examination of dozens of entrepreneurs I’ve come to know well over the past 2 decades tells me that their unconventional—or, dare I say, counter-conventional—mindsets and behaviors are marked by six common patterns: (1) ‘Yes, we can;’ (2) beg, borrow, or steal; (3) think narrow, not broad; (4) problem-first, not product-first logic; (5) ‘No’ is something waiting to be turned into ‘Yes’; and (6) ask for the cash and ride the float. Thankfully, we now know that entrepreneurs are made, not born. These six patterns of entrepreneurial thought and action are eminently learnable. If you want to someday be an entrepreneur, or if you want the people in your company to become more entrepreneurial, then developing—or encouraging and incentivizing your people to develop—such a mindset might constitute a suitable first step toward preparing you to follow a more entrepreneurial path or to foster a more entrepreneurial culture in your company.     

小议电子支付

电子技术的现状直接决定了电子商务的成败,而遵从电子支付协议,利用电子支付工具,是实现网上购物与实际支付的关键所在。电子支付的协议模式包括SSL和SET两种支付模式,电子支付工具包括电子信用卡、电子发票、电子现金三种。目前,电子支付工具存在的问题主要有支付工具的效力问题、税收与洗钱问题、网络安全问题。应限制电子现金的发行人,建立合理的电子现金识别制度,建立一定的密钥托管机制,同时,应从立法和技术两方面对网络进行逐步完善,避免网络遭到黑客攻击。     

Designing a customer retention plan

What is your company's customer retention rate? How many customers are price defectors? Have you identified barriers that prevent customers from switching to a competitor? In this article, the author outlines a game plan to increase customer retention.