Ray Van Eng (07/07/97)
Advance's Internet banking customers can withdraw money from their accounts electronically with DigiCash ecash coins being transferred and stored in their PC hard disks. When they wish to purchase from certified online vendors (those who display the "We accept ecash" sign at their web sites), they simply point and click from an e-wallet software interface provided by Advance Bank to enable the transaction and the digital currency will change hand from the buyers to the merchants. What actually happens in the background is that the consumer PC will generate a 'serial' number for the electronic coins to be signed by Advance Bank. When the coins are validated by the bank, the consumer will retain the bank's digital signature and the serial number and send the digital currency to the online retailer.
Since the 'serial' number is unique for each coin, the bank can be sure that it will not accept the same coin twice. If you wish to prove that you have paid a particular vendor, you could reveal the unique coin number and have the bank confirmed that the merchant did made the deposit. If your PC crushes, you could re-create the coins with your ecash software or with help from the bank. DigiCash claims its ecash system would make life much more difficult for criminals in trying to launder money electronically because every transaction is tallied by a serial number. The bank would know exactly how much anyone receives the digital currency as payment. The system offers a high degree of protection not possible with today's paper notes which has no auditing capabilities other than the printed serial numbers which are often not recorded in money transactions. Currently, there are more than a dozen certified online shops so far: Business book shop Plusone, The Racing Museums Gift Shop and Pharmacydirect, UMAX Scanners, and others. DigiCash says its ecash can handle transactions as low as one cent and the system is being piloted with banks from around the world: Mark Twain Bank (USA), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Merita Bank/EUnet (Finland) and Posten (Sweden). DigiCash has recently moved its headquarters from the Netherlands to California to establish a stronger representation in the United States. Advance Bank claims to be the first Bank in the Asia-Pacific region to issue electronic cash on the Internet and to offer ecash as a bank service.
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So
when later the bank gets the coins back from the merchants, the bank could
only determine the authenticity of the coins but not its origin, thereby,
consumer privacy is protected. One can shop with total anonymity using
the DigiCash ecash system.