Electronic Payment Systems for E-Commerce

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book, but...
Review: If you want a great overview of electronic payments, the various schemes in operation and how they work, this is the book for you. I downloaded the eBook version of this book to do some research on electronic payments and it proved invaluable. I have read only the following sections in detail: overview, security techniques and micropayments, but I would say the book is worth the price just for the lucidity, structured presentation and breadth of coverage of these chapters. The chapters on credit cards and other forms of ePayments look just as well written based on my cursory look at them. The language is precise and non-obfuscatory, readable by managers and technical folks alike, while providing a depth of detail adequate to design your own systems based on these principles, unlike your typical technical book! However, the eBook version has certain extremely annoying featires which compel me to give this book only 3 stars as opposed to the 5 stars it deserves: you can't print even a single page, you can download it only to 3 computers (which is a pain if you have a PC and a laptop at home, and a work PC, and if you then want to refer to it when on a business trip or vacation from another PC), and you can't copy and paste even a word from this document. Draconian copyright measures, if you consider that you can do all these things with a paper version of the book. This is exactly the kind of arrogance on the part of eBook publishers that's going to kill the industry, because I will never buy an eBook again unless I have no choice. If you aren't in a tearing hurry, I'd say get the paper version.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book, but...
Review: If you want a great overview of electronic payments, the various schemes in operation and how they work, this is the book for you. I downloaded the eBook version of this book to do some research on electronic payments and it proved invaluable. I have read only the following sections in detail: overview, security techniques and micropayments, but I would say the book is worth the price just for the lucidity, structured presentation and breadth of coverage of these chapters. The chapters on credit cards and other forms of ePayments look just as well written based on my cursory look at them. The language is precise and non-obfuscatory, readable by managers and technical folks alike, while providing a depth of detail adequate to design your own systems based on these principles, unlike your typical technical book! However, the eBook version has certain extremely annoying featires which compel me to give this book only 3 stars as opposed to the 5 stars it deserves: you can't print even a single page, you can download it only to 3 computers (which is a pain if you have a PC and a laptop at home, and a work PC, and if you then want to refer to it when on a business trip or vacation from another PC), and you can't copy and paste even a word from this document. Draconian copyright measures, if you consider that you can do all these things with a paper version of the book. This is exactly the kind of arrogance on the part of eBook publishers that's going to kill the industry, because I will never buy an eBook again unless I have no choice. If you aren't in a tearing hurry, I'd say get the paper version.

Rating:
Summary: This is a great read for managers of all finance companies
Review: The four authors excel at relating the structure and processing of electronic payments to the future of electronic payments. It is a guide appropriate for both financial executives and payment architects who want to implement real advances in payments that provide cometitive advantages and meet real market needs. I especially liked their clear explanation of payment archetectures, and how deision makers can advance their current technologies without taking high risk avenues. I reach out to the authors to entertain joining my start-up's advisory board and/or become a management team member - [e-mail].

Rating:
Summary: Not up-to-date!
Review: This book is from 2001 so it is definitely not up-to-date. In one table, it compares 25 different companies that offer payment options on the web but only 4 or so are even around. So I'd be wary about paying $88 for information that may not be too trustworthy. Seems geared more towards academics than professionals.