Emerging online e-payment and issues of adoption

Due to the rapid growth of e-commerce, the physical boundaries between parties in business transaction have been eliminated by the fast and convenient network connection. Nevertheless, most payment still has to be carried out offline by conventional methods. Over the last decade, a large number of online payment solutions have been developed, but many are still remained at the trial stage; while others are competing with each other; some even failed to reach a customer acceptance stage before developers quit the business. Reasons of slow acceptance are technological, but more importantly, societal. Developers are struggling in pushing increasingly secure and convenient technological solutions to the public. On the other side, users are seeking the balance between benefits and the risks of using online e-payment, which prolongs the process of wider acceptance. This article offers a brief introduction to typical online e-payment instruments and classifications of existing payment systems. It intends to provide researchers and developers with a clearer view on e-payment by comparing various existing systems. The article also attempts to shed light on the issue of social acceptance and adoption of online e-payment.