Profile 4: EBusiness and EPayment in Germany

E Business and EPayment is strong and doing well in Germany.

EBuisness:
E Business, or electronic business stands for electronic business that is conducted commercially and privately through different electronic mediums, the most common medium being the Internet.

Germay has a decent infratructure to support business done on the internet. They also have a fair internet use base (enough people on the internet). Germany does have electronic business being done every day. The types of business can range from e-tailers to large corporation buisness (stock trading, international orders, electronic documents, etc.)



E-Payment in germany has been advancing in several ways, a few of these being the common use of MicroTransactions

E-Payment is a form of electronic cash, much like a credit card payment at the grocery store, or an online checking account paymnt.

MicroTransactions are transactions for small sums of money. This kind of transaction has really taken off in Germany and Japan. The Government has helped in making this form of transaction more popular by putting the readers on parking meters and transit fare collection stations. The user has a card, which looks much like a debit or credit card. Unlike a credit card, these cards are not tied to your bank account, they work much like a prepaid phone card. They are re-loadable and have a threshold of about $120. These cards are mostly used for transit fare, parking meters, vending machines, newspaper stands, and any other transaction that would normally only cost a few coins.

Sources:
http://www.cio.com/article/30283/E_Business_Mark_White_on_Microtransactions