Visa and digital money

Abstract

Argues that people in income‐rich but time‐poor societies have had to learn to adjust the balance between saving money by spending time searching for bargains and saving time by spending money. Considers payment cards as the response to the quest for convenience but points out the need for a new generation of cards which combine payment facilities with other applications which strip out time‐wasting stages at the points of inconvenience. Looks at a range of chip card devices from hybrid mobile phones to television set top boxes and even contactless chips that carry train and bus season tickets. Each is designed to hold sufficient memory and computing power to contain several applications all of which will be capable of interacting. Outlines Visa’s experience of the Open Platform, a technology that acts as an interface between a chip card’s operating system and the applications on the chip. It is recommended that Open Platform be used in conjunction with open operating systems. The JavaCard and Smartcard for Windows approaches are evaluated in this context.

Citation

Prideaux, J. (1999), "Visa and digital money", European Business Review, Vol. 99 No. 4, pp. 257-260. https://doi.org/10.1108/09555349910281441