A banker's check is the promise of the bank to pay the payee. If the payee trusts the payer, he could also decide not to check the file, and just keep it in his virtual wallet, for future usage. Of course, we must be more pragmatic, and not anchor our minds to the paradigm of physical payments, and I think that there is a point where this paradigm should end, to move toward a new and different mean of payment, instead of trying to implement existing ones in the Net. Similar results could be taken from Business Process Reengineering experiences. It's a little tricky, but i used this definition to help to understand the distinction between smart cards and ecash.
Smart cards are the mean of payment to tranfer ecash, that is the mean of exchange.
Fancher Carol H., Smart Cards, New York, Scientifican American Inc. This message was sent by a majordomo-based automatic list manager. Subscriptions to and archives of this list are available to any person or organization.