E-money is nearly impossible to forge and can be easily located if lost or stolen.

What are the disadvantage of e-money?

Main disadvantage of e-money is that today no common e-money exists. Every company issues and accepts only its own e-money. As these companies are forming alliances it can be supposed that once the common e-money will exist.

What are the possibilities for paying for goods ordered via Internet?

The first one, used mostly in the US, is sending credit card information over the Internet in plain (not encoded) form. This method brings very high risk of misusing this information, and today this type of payment is considered mad. With the introduction of SSL protocol (Secure Socket Layer) its security was increased because of encoding of content sent through Internet. Despite this big improvement of security, the consumers are often concerned about sending important information on-line. A second type of a credit card-based system uses an ID number to purchase goods, rather than sending the actual credit card number on-line. The ID number is obtained by pre-registering a credit card number with a third party who is responsible for maintaining the integrity of that information.

What are the disadvantages of credit card-based systems?

They are not widely used in Slovakia, and they are not useful for making micropayments. (Transactions less than few tenths of crowns and purchases in units of hellers, their realisation fee would be actually higher than the amount of transaction.)

What about e-money and Slovakia?

In Slovakia is used mostly COD (Cash On Delivery) system which doesn’t have much in common with e-money, but there are also several services (provided especially by banks) that in connection with internet banking enables you to pay for goods online.

EURO

What’s the ECU?

It’s common European currency, which is based on group of currencies of countries, which are members of the European Union. National currencies are represented proportionally to their economic power. The parts, which belong to the countries, are changed every 5 years. It is currency in which are defined debts and credits inside European Union. It’s also used as reserve in banks in member countries.

What’s EURO?

Euro started its function on 1.1.1999. It’s common European Union currency. There’s fixed ratio between Euro and European Union national currencies. There’s equation between ECU and EURO: 1 ECU = 1 EURO.

How will EURO begin its carrier?

The European Central Bank (ECB) was established on 1 June 1998. It is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and aims to maintain price stability and to conduct a single monetary policy across the euro area.