E-wallet is a kind of payment tool commonly used by customers in e-commerce shopping activities, and it is a new type of wallet commonly used when shopping in small quantities or buying small commodities. Shopping with e-wallet usually needs to be done in the e-wallet service system. The e-wallet software in e-commerce activities is usually provided free of charge. You can directly use the e-wallet software on the e-commerce system server connected with your bank account, or you can adjust it from the Internet and use the e-wallet software in various confidential ways. At present, there are two major e-wallet service systems in the world: VISAcash and Mondex. Other e-wallet service systems include MasterCardcash, Clip paid in Europe and Proton in Belgium.
Customers who use e-wallets usually have accounts in banks. When using e-wallet, install relevant application software on the e-commerce server, and use the e-wallet service system to input the data on your various electronic money or electronic financial cards. When receiving and paying, if the customer wants to pay by electronic credit card, such as Visa card or MasterCard card, the customer only needs to click on the corresponding item (or icon). People usually refer to this electronic payment method as click or electric shock payment method.
Electronic wallet can only be completely filled with electronic money, that is, electronic cash, electronic change, safe change, electronic credit card, online money, digital currency, etc. These electronic payment tools can support one-click payment.
In the e-commerce service system, there is a function management module of electronic money and electronic wallet, which is called electronic wallet manager. Customers can use it to change secret passwords or secret methods, and use it to check electronic money accounts, lists and revenue and expenditure data in their bank accounts. There is also an electronic transaction recorder in the e-commerce service system. Customers can know what they bought and how much they bought through the inquiry recorder, and they can also print out the inquiry results.
Although the use of e-wallet often starts from a concentrated city or industry, if different industries and regions develop their own e-wallets, universality becomes an important issue. The universal effect brought by the unified standard enables different e-wallet acceptance terminals to enjoy at low cost, which is an important prerequisite for the cross-industry and cross-regional development of e-wallets. As far as China is concerned, the financial IC card standard of the People's Bank of China sets the standards for electronic wallets and electronic passbooks in China, which lays the foundation for the unified development of electronic wallets in China. At present, the standard has not formulated a non-contact standard, which means that the standard can not enter the largest application field of electronic wallets-transportation, so it needs to be further improved.
At present, domestic e-wallets can be roughly divided into two categories: industry e-wallets (or quasi-e-wallets) evolved from industry cards and general e-wallets issued by banks. Due to historical and existing institutional reasons, the bus industry is the most developed field of industry cards and the cradle of industry e-wallets.
At present, all large and medium-sized cities in China are implementing bus card projects, with different standards and implementation methods. The bus card industry in Shanghai and Guangzhou has developed rapidly, mainly because of its large population base, and the transaction volume and deposited funds can bring relatively rich profits to the project. According to incomplete statistics, more than 7 million "One Card" buses have been issued in Shanghai, and more than 2 million "Yangchengtong" buses have been issued in Guangzhou. The total number of traffic cards in the two cities has exceeded100000. In addition, because the traffic card, especially the cross-industry traffic card, involves the image of urban information management and the vital interests of citizens, the government usually has a certain enthusiasm for promotion. Beijing, Wuhan, Nanjing, Jinan and other big cities and small and medium-sized cities have also implemented bus cards to varying degrees. Even small cities like Wuxi and Suzhou are actively realizing the "inter-city communication" with Shanghai (that is, the "one card" is universal across cities). It can be seen that the development trend of bus cards is good.
Another industry e-wallet comparable to the bus card is the catering card issued by various places, and the business card used for shopping in supermarkets and department stores. This kind of card is generally used for public consumption or the welfare provided by the company to employees, and has special advantages incomparable to other industry cards in marketing.
In foreign countries, general electronic wallets are supervised by financial institutions, but China lacks corresponding legal norms for electronic wallets. Therefore, all kinds of industry cards have entered the field of micropayment and become universal electronic wallets. There is no rule to follow, and only gradual infiltration can be adopted. Shanghai's bus card has been used to pay water and electricity bills, and it can also be used to shop in some supermarkets. The same is true for food and beverage cards and business cards.
Except for industry cards, IC cards issued by banks according to the financial IC card specifications of the People's Bank of China are basically general electronic wallets that meet PBOC standards. For example, Peony Transportation Card in Beijing, petrochemical refueling card in China Bank and so on.
Although bank electronic wallet appeared in the 1990s, it has not been widely promoted in practical application. So far, the circulation of pure bank e-wallets (excluding co-branded cards) is only over 2 million.
Considering the overall income of commercial banks, e-wallet, like debit card, can absorb deposits, and does not need to pay interest, and does not occupy the bank's back-office system and communication resources. It is a card with greater income. However, there are still some difficulties in the promotion of e-wallet. First of all, China, like the United States, has a much lower communication cost than Europe, so the cost advantage of offline e-wallet transactions is negligible. In the micro-payment field where both bank debit cards and credit cards can enter, e-wallet is lacking in other aspects except the advantage of transaction speed. Secondly, at present, the micro-payment fields that require high transaction speed mainly include highways, parking lots, subways, buses, taxis and fast food restaurants. Contactless cards are more practical, while bank e-wallets have no contactless standards, so their application in some micro-payment fields is limited. In addition, in terms of marketing means, one of the important reasons why trade cards can be promoted is that commercial invoices can be issued, and group buying has become the main channel for the sale of stored-value cards, while bank e-wallets do not have such a marketing channel. Therefore, banks are cautious about investing in bank e-wallets with pure payment function.
Of course, due to the needs of horizontal competition, some industries have also started to open their own business platforms and make full use of the payment function advantages of financial e-wallets to attract more consumers.
E-wallet is widely used and brings a lot of convenience to people! !