eCash

(1) See digital money.

(2) An earlier Web payment service originally developed in the 1990s by Amsterdam-based DigiCash, Inc., which used a blind signature encryption method and required an active account from an eCash member bank. Digital coins were stored in the eCash Purse digital wallet on the customer's computer, and coins were deducted from the wallet when a purchase was made at eCash-compliant sites. The system was regulated by adding a serial number to each coin. When the merchant received the coins from the customer, the coins were sent to the customer's bank for verification. If a coin matched the serial number of a coin that had already been spent, fraudulent activity was detected.

Despite this innovative system, not enough banks participated for its success, and in 1999, eCash Technologies, Inc. acquired DigiCash. In turn, eCash was bought in 2002 by InfoSpace, Inc., Bellevue, WA and absorbed into its payment solutions unit. See Web payment service.

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(application)

Ecash - A trial form of electronic funds transfer over the Internet (and soon by electronic mail). The ecash software stores digital money, signed by a bank, on the user's local computer. The user can spend the digital money at any shop accepting ecash, without the trouble of having to open an account there first, or having to transmit credit card numbers. The shop just has to accept the money, and deposit it at the bank. The security is provided by a public-key digital signature. There process involves the issuing banks who exchange real money for ecash, users who have and spend ecash, shops who accept ecash payments, and clearing banks who clear payments received by shops. At the moment, all users and shops must have an account at DigiCash's own bank, the "First Digital Bank" at bank.digicash.com. They can withdraw money from the bank, and convert it to ecash. Shops can be started by any ecash user. http://digicash.com/ecash/ecash-home.html.