This section provides some information on the different phases that comprises a payment process. The knowledge of this process is fundamental to understand the different elements that are defined in an e-payment framework.
Payment Process
The process of making purchase on the Internet is divided into the following stages (Maes et al., 1999): need identification, product brokering, merchant brokering, negotiation, purchase and delivery, and product service and evaluation. Thus, once the user realizes that he/she has a need, it gathers information regarding the product and the merchant, then, client can negotiate the conditions with the vendor. Once the conditions have been agreed, the purchase and delivery of the product is made. Finally, several processes related to user satisfaction could be performed.
Recently, the W3C's Web payments activity initiative (W3C, 2014) considered that the simplest purchase comprises four steps: publishing an asset, publishing a license, publishing an offer, and performing the purchase.
In both cases, we can point out that, in order to make a purchase, we have to manage two kinds of information: information describing the product/service and its merchant, and information regarding the payment process: payment systems available to perform the payment, receipts, etc.
This section aims to provide the definition of what an e- payment framework is, what its main features are and its benefits.