Electronic Payment Systems: Winning New Customers

by James Essinger

This book explains how Electronic Payment Systems (EPS) can help retail banks and other financial and retail institutions win new customers and keep them.
It argues that the prime motivation for deploying EPS should not be to make the organization's job easier, or to reduce the volume of paperwork, but to make the retail institution's products and services more attractive to customers, and to construct systems through which these more attractive products and services can be delivered. It is only by making the attraction of new customers the primary aim that effective and workable systems can be designed and deployed.
Chapter one covers the development of Electronic Payment Systems. Chapters two to five are devoted to Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale (EFTPoS), telephone banking and smart cards, respectively. In each case the chapter concludes with summary guidelines for winning customers.
Chapter six provides detailed instructions on how to bring an electronic payment system to the market. The reader is guided through the preparatory planning stage, establishing a strategy, defining the system's requirements, gathering the tools of implementation, launching the service and monitoring its effectiveness. There is also a handy checklist of questions to address.
Chapter seven is a survey of the extent of implementation of each of the major types of electronic payment systems in the United Kingdom, United States and continental Europe.
Chapter eight explains the principal consumer advantages of using electronic payment systems, suggests ways of overcoming the traditional institutional barriers to accepting the primacy of the customer, and lists the most commonly voiced complaints from the general public about EPS.
The final chapter identifies five major trends in the area which will help the reader plan to meet the demands of the future.
With his practical down-to-earth approach, and his succinct and engaging style, James Essinger has ensured that this book will be essential reading for anyone needing to understand the strategic marketing implications of electronic payment systems.

158 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1992

About the author

Hi! My name is James Essinger and I'm a writer of fiction and non-fiction.

In my fiction I have a particular interest in personal relationships, travel, history, information technology and chess.

In my non-fiction I have a particular interest in the history of computing, and in language.

I was born in Leicester in the English Midlands in 1957 and I attended Overdale Junior School in Leicester and also Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys. After a year between school and university, I studied English Language and Literature at Lincoln College, which is part of the University of Oxford.

After leaving university I taught English in Finland for three nine-month sessions. I learnt Finnish, and I still speak Finnish fairly fluently. I also speak German and French.

My interests, aside from writing, include: my friends, movies, travel, chess and history.