CHAPTER 18
CyberPayments has continued its explosive 1990s growth into the 21st century, and it is now possible to purchase goods and services from many more places and in more ways than ever before. Electronic commerce—the ability to purchase goods and services over the Internet from around the world at any time of day or night—is foremost in that phenomenal growth. The Internet has developed from being an information source to becoming a medium of highspeed digital transactions. A growing number of companies are taking advantage of the Web by selling products and services of all sorts, both to consumers (B2C) and to other businesses. Although electronic commerce does not dominate international trade, all indications are that just about every size firm in a sweeping cross-section of countries are planning and executing ecommerce strategies. In 1996, Web commerce registered sales of just US$73 million in the consumer market and a mere US$12 million in the business-to-business (B2B) market. The B2B market alone exceeded US$6 trillion by 2007 and is set to grow at a minimum of 15% per year for the next decade. But before electronic commerce could experience such phenomenal growth patterns, several issues had to be resolved. Privacy, lack of trust, the real potential for fraud, and the difficulty of making or receiving payment over the Internet were among the most commonly cited problems inhibiting early versions of electronic commerce. In response, the industry worked feverishly to remedy these issues, and tremendous strides were made in just a few years. All indications are, that because of this remedial work, the explosive growth predictions for the turn of the century will be close to the mark.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
What is Electronic Commerce? Electronic commerce includes Internet transactions, certain forms of network electronic commerce, point-of-sale networks, some types of computer-tocomputer transactions, select forms of electronic funds transfer, and the sale of information technology hardware, software, and services that assist companies in the development, maintenance, and administration of electronic commerce. This continues to be a highly dynamic area, however, and new methods of conducting commercial transactions are being added all the time to this broad category of trade. Technology development is moving along at rocket speed as businesses and industries around the world see the many opportunities to create and expand markets with high technology. While information, advertising and research are all conducted electronically, this chapter focuses on electronic payments and the many benefits to international trade of continued development in this area.
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