The Upcoming form of money – e-money

Electronic money or e-cash is changing the way money is perceived as the paper cash had changed the way of buying the things. In the earlier times things were purchased on the basis of barter system or exchange of goods like gold and silver but then a revolution came first starting from coins moving onto paper cash. Paper cash has ruled a lot and now the time is coming when the paper cash may get replaced by the e-cash or e-money. However it is highly doubtful and not so easy to replace paper cash with e-cash.

 With the invent of technology and internet, the way things were purchased has changed drastically and that is happening because of e-commerce. The internet has created a new economic system – the ecommerce, which has become the virtual market place for everything. It has provided a platform where we can quickly and conveniently buy and exchange goods and services globally just sitting at our homes over the electronic systems such as internet. Ecommerce is identified as the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using the technologies such as EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). EFT means transfer of funds from one account to another, either with single financial institution or with multiple financial institutions via computer based systems called the internet or any other computer network.

As per day by day technology is advancing and high-tech hand held devices are emerging which has converted e-commerce to m-commerce. M-commerce means doing any sort of commercial transactions with the help of any mobile device that can be a smart phone, PDA (personal digital assistant), or any other mobile device. According to comScore, upto November 2011 there were 38% of smart phone users who have used their phone to make a purchase at least once which means as smart phones are becoming more popular and is going from hands to hands, so does the mcommerce.

Global Internet penetration rates have an enormous impact on e-commerce and m-commerce growth rates. Currently, more than 30.2% of the world has access to the internet, and hence, e-commerce. Reduced Internet surfing charges, Internet technology development covering expanded bandwidth, and increased speeds & reliability could make e-commerce and m-commerce available to a large pool of emerging market consumers.

As e-commerce and m-commerce will increase, the value of e-money goes on increasing day by day. People will shop sitting at home or on the way using e-money. So, slowly and gradually the trend of e-money is increasing.