Major issues in designing an electronic payment system Translating checks or credit card transactions to the Internet requires finding electronic and business model equivalents for the functions used in the existing paper-based system. The simple model below illustrates the major issues that must be addressed in designing an electronic payment system. Signatures and confidentiality are the two biggest problems in creating digital payment instruments. These issues are typically handled with some form of cryptography. Some form of public-key infrastructure, such as certificates, must be employed to associate a named user or an account unambiguously with a particular public key.
Message digests provide integrity.
Most payment systems require special consumer and merchant software to prepare and process electronic payment messages. The use of credit cards over the phone for catalog shopping is well established. Some of the first Internet systems propose to extend that model to shopping from Web-based catalogs. Electronic Payment System 1. CyberCash's gateway CyberCash Inc . implemented a system for protecting credit card presentation on the Internet in April 1995.