Drag-and-Drop Web Wallets Make E-Payments Easier

A consortium of consumer finance and computer software and hardware companies are proposing a standard for digital wallets.

Abandoned shopping carts are cluttering the Web, according to a February 1999 report from Jupiter Communications Inc. The report found that 27 percent of on-line buyers abandon orders before checkout. Because of a lack of standards, the data formats used in these forms vary considerably from one merchant to another. Consumers find the diversity confusing and the process of manually filling in these forms tedious.

Last year, that translated into more than $3 billion in lost on-line consumer sales.

An alliance of organizations is developing technology to make the on-line shopping experience easier for consumers and more remunerative for merchants.

The companies include American Express Co., America Online Inc., the Brodia Group (formerly Transactor Networks), Compaq Computer Corp., CyberCash Inc., Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co.'s Discover Financial Services, IBM Corp., MasterCard International Inc., Microsoft Corp., Novell Inc., SET Secure Electronic Transaction LLC, Sun Microsystems Inc., Trintech Group PLC and Visa International, and the nonprofit Financial Services Technology Consortium.

The standard, called Electronic Commerce Modeling Language (ECML), will be used in ''digital wallets'' for making purchases on merchant sites around the Web.

Digital wallets are software tools that allow consumers to store billing, shipping and payment information and use this information to complete a merchant's checkout page automatically. They may be used as browser plug-ins or helper applications, stand-alone client applications or server-based applications.

The proliferation of digital wallets, however, has been hampered by the lack of standards. Use of ECML by multiple venders of digital wallets would mean that Web shoppers could drag and drop a computer icon to make a purchase from any participating merchant.

Merchants benefit from increased sales and enhanced customer satisfaction without the need to change the look or feel of their Web sites or alter their preferred method of on-line security. Wallet software vendors, electronic commerce software vendors, merchants and payment-card organizations all support ECML. It is an open standard and does not require any licensing or usage fees.

Additionally, while ECML has been defined for payment cards today, it may be used with any payment mechanism. It allows a merchant the ability to work with a number of wallet solutions and make shopping on its Web site easier for consumers.

Initial major on-line retailers supporting ECML include Beyond.com Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Fashionmall.com Inc., Nordstrom Inc. and Omaha Steaks International Inc.

Web site: http://www.ecml.org

Claudia Flisi