Digital money - a resurrection?

In its issue of February 17th 2007 the Economist reports on new developments in the area of digital money, which had more or less vanished from e-commerce (PayPal is a notable exception). Apparently, the convergence of mobil phones, contactless near field communication, smart cards, and the Internet may give digital money a new lease for life.

The last time around, payment systems suffered from too many systems competing for a relatively small market. No standard eveloved and the systems folded. It is not clear that a common standard will evolve more readily when the systems comprise more components.

Andrew Odlyzko has a useful paper on micropayments.

RAEM