Automatic Generation of

B2C E-Commerce Payment Process

By Jinglei Mei Thursday, November 09, 2000

Introduction

E-Commerce Overview? Problem Description Research Objectives

E-Commerce Overview

What is E-Commerce? What is B2C E-Commerce? Current E-Commerce framework Future of E-Commerce

What is E-Commerce?

E-Commerce is the conducting of business transactions, sharing of business information, delivery of information/goods and maintaining business and customer relationships via an electronic network.

What is E-Commerce?

E-Commerce affects the way that business interactions occur, influences how end customers negotiate, order, and pay for goods and services.

What is B2C E-Commerce?

B2C means Business-To-Consumer B2C transactions where a consumer seeks

goods and services over a network

Current E-Commerce framework

E-Commerce is an environment that facilitates business and organizational transactions over networks

E-Commerce is a new term for an old practice, which was standardized as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

The TCP/IP protocol, Internet, WWW, and international networks are increasing being used for traditional labor-intensive business processes

Future of B2C E-Commerce

Consumer confidence/security becomes more important in B2C

Reliable/convenient Consumer Relationships is one of the most important parts in B2C

Consumers want to purchase in a distributed environment

Problem Description

The current existing payment protocols still lack of supporting for simultaneous atomic purchases from multiple sources

Problem Description (Cont.)

When a customer interacts with multiple merchants within one single E-Commerce transaction, the traditional bilateral communication between participants cannot provide a feasible solution.

Research Objectives

Intend to propose and implement B2C E-Commerce payment by a transactional process encompassing the diverse interactions between all participants

Research Objectives

Introduce a mechanism to generate processes at the payment coordinators site based on a generic payment process template, which is filled with the description of customer’s E-Commerce transaction

Research Objectives(Cont.)

Intend to develop a payment coordinator which allows the combination of different interactions into one E-Commerce transaction.

Literature Reviews

Several agent-based approaches exist– L.Kerschberg and S. Banejee presented an

agency-based framework for E-Commerce– Peter Cassidy presented “Online payment

systems for retail E-Commerce activating the automated Till”

Literature Reviews (Cont.)

Several payment models exist– Direct cash-like /account-based system

• FirstVirtual, NetCheque

– Electronic wallets– Electronic Bill Presentment and

Payment(EBPP)

Literature Reviews (Continues)

E-Commerce payment infrastructure – Electronic cash and Electronic checks– Internet-based Credit card payments

• Secure Electronic Transaction(SET)

• Secure Socket Layer(SSL)

Internet

Bank Card Network

SET Paymentgateway

AcquirerBank

Issuer Bank

Consumer

SSL

Paymentintemediary(SSLSever and SET/SSL Gateway)

SSL

SETCertification

Authority

Merchant

SET

SET

SET

Importance/Benefits of Research

E-Commerce is a very interdisciplinary research area.

The most important phase in E-Commerce interactions is the payment, due to the transfer of sensitive information(e.g. credit card number)

Importance of Research(Cont.)

The accomplishment of payments is the crucial part in B2C E-Commerce interactions, since this phase does not only determine the success or failure but also requires sensitive information to be transferred.

Research Design

1. Requirements of B2C E-Commerce payment process

2. Basic structure of payment process

3. Generation of payment process

4. Architecture of payment coordinator

1.Requirements of B2C payments

Security– Use current cryptographic technologies– Key transfer in an encrypted way

Anonymity– Protect customer and his/her spending patterns– Partial anonymity

Requirements (Cont.)

Verification and Provability– Customers and merchants must be able to

prove/verify the transactions

Atomicity– Includes Money transfer, Goods Delivery and

Distributed purchase atomictiy

Receive Payment Information

Check Validity of Payment Information

Recieve Keys fromMerchant 1

Recieve Keys fromMerchant N

CheckTimeout

Sent keys toconsumer

MoneyTransfer

Confrimationof Merchant1

Confrimationof MerchantN

NotifyCustomer

NotifyBank

NotifyMerchant

1

NotifyMerchant

N

Commit Abort

3. Generation of Payment Process

Architecture of B2C Payment System Execution of Distribution Payment

Transactions

Web Browser

ShoppingAssistant

Payment ProcessGenerator

Web Server

WISE ProcessEngine

MerchantApplication

Bank Application

Customer Merchant

Payment Coordinator Bank

Order, Merchant Info

Payment Info

B2C E-Commerce Payment System

4. Payment Coordinator

i. Shopping Assistant

ii. Payment Process Generator

iii. Process Engine

i.) Shopping Assistant

It collects and performs all payment information captured during the initial negotiation phase, where data is exchanged by MIME types.

It runs at the customer’s site and is plugged into customer’s web browser.

It contains a wallet to manage electronic cash tokens and stores.

ii.)Payment Process Generator

The execution of payment process Handles the transformation Is plugged into the process engine Consists of order,merchant and payment

information

iii.) Process Engine

Workflow based Internet Services(WISE) is driven the design and implementation of software tools for E-Commerce.

WISE is based on virtual business process, virtual enterprises, and trading communities.

WISE Engine

WISE functionalities include Exception Handling, Event management and inter-process communication, Quality of Service and Execution Guarantees.

WISEEngine

Computer

Computer

Computer

VituralBusiness

Processes

Server

Server

Server

Navigation

Invocation Monitoring

VituralBusiness

Processes

SubsystemAdapters

Persistent State Bookeeping

Databases

Customers

Servers

TradingCommunity

VirtualBusinessProcess

VirturalEnterprise

Coordiantion &Communication

Process auditing &Monitoring

Process definition Process enactment

Schematic specification WISE Engine

Data Analysis

Properties of Transactional Payment Processes– Guaranteed Termination of Payment Process– Compliance of Payment Process Requirements– Cryptographic Security– Handling of System Failure

Data Analysis

Laboratory/Simulation may be used to analyze the characterization of conventional/digital payment mechanisms

Schedule

Preliminary approval (1 month) Literature reviews (2 month) Research Design (3 month) Research Implementation (3 month) Evaluation (1 month) Documentation (1 month)

Facilities and Special Resource

WISE Process Engine Protocols for secure E-Commerce Visa/MasterCard Supports

Summary

This research shows the structure of Automatic Generation of B2C payment process

This research presents a system allowing a customer to encompass different independent interactions with different merchants into one single E-Commerce transaction

Summary (Cont.)

This research will extend and generalize the idea of dynamically generating payment process by allowing to use different payment methods for different goods within one single process.

Questions?