7 Commerce and Payments in Cyberspace. Electronics and the Internet have created great changes in how commerce is conducted and payments are made in the United States. This chapter considers how communications can legally bind the parties despite the absence of a signed | 7 Commerce and Payments in Cyberspace Electronics and the Internet have created great changes in how commerce is conducted and payments are made in the United States. This chapter considers how communications can legally bind the parties despite the absence of a signed written agreement. It discusses digital signatures electronic checks bill payment and presentment procurement smart cards including purchasing cards and stored value cards home banking money laundering and the privacy rights of bank customers. REVOLUTIONS IN PAYMENT SYSTEMS The last half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century witnessed revolutionary developments in payment systems in the United States. Checks today are processed with magnetic ink character recognition MICR line coding near the bottom of the check a technology that was developed in the 1950s. The 1970s saw the advent of the fax machine the automated teller machine ATM 185 Commerce and Payments in Cyberspace the point-of-sale POS machine and the processing of checks through automated clearing house ACH associations. In the 1960s and 1970s the Federal Reserve Wire Network Fedwire the New York Clearing House Association s Clearing House Interbank Payments System CHIPS and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Funds Transfers SWIFT were created and became important means of sending large-dollar wire transfers on an automated basis both domestically and internationally. The 1980s saw the development of the personal computer PC . The 1990s saw the mushrooming of applications for the computer and the popularization of e-mail browsing on the World Wide Web electronic commerce transacted on the Internet and the proliferation of new electronic payment products. Payment system law has sometimes struggled to keep pace with these developments but on the whole has managed rather well. PAPERLESS TRANSACTIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS Consider three types of transactions In the first transaction a consumer wants to buy this .
