Digital checking payment systems (DCPS) are payment systems where account entry information are checked electronically. This procedure can be applied to a wide range of payment systems as bank transfer, direct debit, debit cards, credit cards and checks. All required steps from the initiating to the closing of a payment can be done electronically. Main advantages of DCPS are a high level of speed, of security and of processing efficiencies due to the utilization of existing advantages of paper-based payment systems in combination with advantages of electronical usage in general.
The transaction speed of a payment can be very fast using DCPS. The main reason is that there is no need to go physically the bank or saving bank to initiate a payment transaction. Only a electronical device with an accordant software or app is needed.
Verification of content and validity is done automatically. No person is needed for that. So there is another speed-up for the whole payment transaction.
There is a high level of processing effiency due to a high level of automatication. A high level of automatication caused higher speed and lower cost in comparison to mature non-electronical payment systems.
Many DCPS are legally treat as mature non-electronical payment systems. eCheck for exmaple is used by the United States Treasury to make high-value payments over the public Internet.1)
eBay for example accepts some DCPS like PayPal, ProPay2), Skrill 3), Paymate 4) and Bill Me Later.5)
At all these examples required payment checkings are done electronically.
An eCheck is an electronical version of a paper check.6) The process of an eCheck includes:
Paypal is an DCPS where e-mail-adresses are used for the electronical check.
PayPal is typically used for Micropayments.
PayPal is also an eCheck proceeding company.7)
ProPay is an DCPS where credit and debit card data is used for the electronical check.
Skrill is another DCPS where e-mail-adresses are used for the electronical check. It is some kind of a prepaid payment system. So you can upload and withdraw your funds to/from your account.
Paymate is another DCPS where credit data is used for the electronical check.
Bill Me Later is a DCPS using birthday and social security number data for the electronical check.8) It is a subsidiary of PayPal.
DCPS uses a wide range of security techniques as authentication, public key cryptography, digital signatures, certificate authorities and encryption. Often, DCPS providers uses state of the art security techniques and combines some security techniques. Nevertheless there are no absolutely secure payment method.
Authentication is defined as establishing the identity of one party to another.
Public Key Cryptography is a security technique using a public cryptography key for sending messages, but a secret key for read them.9)
A Digital Signature is a mathematical based security technique. This technique allows to identify the creator of the signature and/or the document which was signed by the recipient. One kind of Digital signatures are Public Key Cryptographic Digital Signatures.
A Security Certificate in IT environment is a third-party verification of a website's identity in order to establish trust.
Encryption is the conversion of data in such way that it cannot be read or understood without knowing how the data is encoded.