What are e-wallets?

E-wallet is a device through which all the payments are made (Sahut 2008). An e-wallet works like any  traditional wallet (Taghiloo et al. 2010). ‘An encrypted storage medium holding credit card and other financial information that can be used to complete electronic transactions without re-entering the stored data at the time of the transaction’ (Chauhan 2013).

In today’s world of technology, many multinational giants like Google, Apple and Microsoft are into the e-wallet venture in some or the other way (Ergeerts et al. 2012). It is a medium through which financial transactions are made easy, since it saves all the details of cards, and management of cards, cash, currency and coins and cash (Mainwaring et al. 2005). ‘

It is a smart card with a microprocessor whose memory is credited with purchasing power stored in a float account that has previously been deposited in a specialized company (bank or e-money)’  (Sahut 2008).

E-wallet does the preliminary form filling work on its own, on any purchase leading to no wastage of time and efficient working (Upadhayaya 2012). An e-wallet not only saves bank account information but also saves data like- vehicle registration (car information), important mobile phone information, size of clothes that fits the user or people for whom the user buys clothes and e-mail account information (Chauhan 2013).

There are other payment techniques as well that has made people’s lives quite simpler, they have been very popular and have a uniform electronic payment system- PayPal  (Olsen et al. 2011), Oyster Card in London and Octopus Card in Hong Kong (Olsen et al. 2011).

What all information can an e-wallet store?

Users can customize their e-wallet as per their own needs and he can save the data accordingly (Upadhayaya 2012).  The data can be stored in different folders, namely- personal and business. The personal folder can be for one’s own use and the business folder can be shared with an assistant (Upadhayaya 2012).

Following are the information that can be stored by an e-wallet (Ilium Software 2014):

• Bank account information.
• Birthdays.
• Calling cards and it will have access to the PINs’.
• Clothes size of all kinds of clothes with respect to the brands.
• Credit cards details like expiry date, name, PIN, bank.
• Email accounts- usernames, passwords
• Insurance details like policy number, important dates, date of payment of premium etc.
• Membership cards, registration details like name and date.
• Car details like registration number, date of registration, validity of registration etc.

It is quite evident from the above mentioned fields how convenient e-wallets can be. According to a research done by Mia Olsen et al, e-wallets are mostly used by young teenagers, young adults, mothers and businessmen.

The advent of this technology changed the face of electronic payment system. More acceptance of this technology can make everybody’s’ lives easier and faster. People will not have to worry about their bank account details’ security since e-wallets are heavily protected application.

References

• Chauhan, P., 2013. E-Wallet: The Trusted Partner in our Pocket. International Journal for Research in Management and Pharmacy, 2(4), pp.12–19. Available at: http://raijmr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2_12-19-Pinal-Chauhan.pdf [Accessed May 14, 2014].
• Ergeerts, G. et al., 2012. Vision towards an Open Electronic Wallet on NFC Smartphones. International Journal on Advances in Internet Technology, 5(3&4), pp.84–94. Available at: http://www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/publications/article-2288.pdf [Accessed May 14, 2014].
• Ilium Software, 2014. eWallet; Users Guide and Reference. Available at: http://www.iliumsoft.com/dl/doc/eWallet.pdf [Accessed May 14, 2014].
• Mainwaring, S., Anderson, K. & Chang, M., 2005. What’s in Your Wallet? Implications for Global E-Wallet Design. CHI, (April 2-7), pp.1613–1616.
• Olsen, M., Hedman, J. & Vatrapu, R., 2011. E-WALLETS. Center for Applied ICT, Copenhagen Business School, (2), pp.1–16. Available at: http://openarchive.cbs.dk/bitstream/handle/10398/8311/CAICT_Com_220113.pdf?sequence=1 [Accessed May 14, 2014].
• Sahut, J.-M., 2008. The Adoption and Diffusion of Electronic Wallets: The Case of Monéo. Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 13(1), pp.1–10. Available at: http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/jibc/2008-04/Jean-Michel-Sahut.pdf [Accessed May 14, 2014].
• Taghiloo, M., Agheli, M. & Rezaeinezhad, M., 2010. MOBILE BASED SECURE DIGITAL WALLET FOR PEER TO PEER PAYMENT SYSTEM. International Journal of UbiComp, 1(4), pp.1–11. Available at: http://airccse.org/journal/iju/papers/1010iju01.pdf [Accessed May 14, 2014].
• Upadhayaya, A., 2012. Electronic Commerce and E-wallet. International Journal of Recent Research and Review, 1, pp.37–41. Available at: http://www.ijrrr.com/papers/8 E-wallet.pdf [Accessed May 14, 2014].