LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 AN OVERVIEW OF E-PAYMENT AS A METHOD.
E-payment is a subset of an e-commerce transaction to include electronic payment for buying and selling goods or services offered through the internet. Generally we think of electronic payments as referring to online transactions on the internet, there are actually many forms of electronic payments. As technology is developing, the range of devices and processes to transact electronically continues to increase while the percentage of cash and check transactions continues to decrease. In the US, for example, checks have declined from 85% of non-cash payments in 1979 to 59% in 2002, and electronic payments have grown to 41%. The internet has the potential to become the most active trade intermediary within a decade. Also, internet shopping may revolutionize retailing by allowing consumers to sit in their homes and buy an enormous variety of products and services from all over the worlds. Many businesses and consumers are still wary of conducting extensive business electronically.
Below is a diagrammic presentation of how e-payment is processed.
2.2 History of Electronic Payments
In 1918, electric money was born when Federal Reserve Banks first moved currency via telegraph. However it was not until the automated-clearing-house (ACH) was setup by the US Federal Reserve in 1972 that electronic currency became widespread. This provided the US Treasury and commercial banks with an electronic alternative to processing cheques. In 1939, a serial inventor by the name Luther George Simjian created the Bankmatic automatic teller machine. He filed 20 patents and asked the company now know as Cititcorp to trial it. After six months the bank had reported that there was no demand for such a product. However in 1968, Don Wetzel, Tom Barnes (mechanical engineer) and George Chastin (electrical engineer) conceptualized what is now known as the modern ATM. In 1969 and five million