If you are a merchant whose customers are people who have traditionally been paying cash, then Internet Cash would really be of interest. It's ideal for teens and children - and for gifts. It's also perfect for people who don't have credit cards (~31% of the US population and most of the rest of the world), or who would rather not pay with credit cards on the Web.

Customers purchase InternetCash™ cards at one of hundreds of physical stores around. Like prepaid phone cards, they will also be available from vending machines and ATM machines. Customers pay the retailers for the cards using whatever payment methods the retailers typically accept, including cash. Cards are sold in denominations of $10, $20, $50 and $100.

Customers then go to the InternetCash™ site, and activate their cards by entering a 20-digit code from the back of the card and creating a personal identification number.

When the customer is ready to check-out with the merchant, he selects the payment method of InternetCash™. A secure window that's hosted by InternetCash™ appears asking him to enter the card number (if he opted not to take the cookie), and to enter his pin. Purchases are automatically deducted from the value of the card, and a customer can pay with up to 30 cards. Within the next month, customers will be able to transfer value from one card to another so that they can consolidate the value of cards when they're validating them, rather than paying with multiple cards. At that time, C2C commerce will be enabled because customers will be able to transfer their balances to other customers' cards.

Once the merchant receives verification from InternetCash™ that the payment was made successfully, which takes place behind the scenes on the merchant's server, the merchant gives the customer an order confirmation number and the sale is concluded. The merchant stores only an encrypted digital signature from the customer and a payment authorization number from InternetCash™. Consequently, there's nothing in the merchant's database that's of value to hackers or that presents a risk for customers.

If the customer is purchasing digital goods, he doesn't even need to provide a name or address, just the payment information. In certain immediate fulfillment industries, the ones that have been targeted as high-risk by Visa and Mastercard, this can really expedite the checkout process and insure anonymity on the part of the shopper.

Payment terms
As an online merchant, the discount rate is negotiated as a percentage, not as a per-transaction fee, so it lends itself well to micropayments.

Customers do not pay a premium to use InternetCash™, but when C2C commerce is enabled, the payer will pay a small fee to transfer money to the recipient.

InternetCash™ is one of the few payment solutions that genuinely acts as an alternative currency on the Web. Anyone can get InternetCash™ because no credit card is required to make the purchase. The customer's money sits on a server, so it's not tied to the machine at which the customer is sitting when he activates his card, yet the pin resolves the repudiation issue that concerns merchants.

www.internetcash.com

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