Payments Task Force Stakeholder Groups

From W3C Wiki

This is intended to a list the names and descriptions of the various classes of groups with a stake in the future of Web payments, along with the steps needed to gather their input. Your help is needed in fleshing this out.

We are looking for help to establish relevant contacts with key stakeholders external to the W3C Membership who would be able to contribute in some way to the idea of open standards for web payments. Examples include:

  • credit card associations like MasterCard and VISA
  • banking institutions with an interest in web-based ecommerce
  • government agencies e.g. in the USA and the European Commission
  • key web commerce companies who aren't W3C Members, e.g. Amazon

Help has also been asked from W3C Team colleagues in Beijing and Tokyo with a view to getting a global perspective.

Government agencies are included above, as it is expected that they will have an interest in taxation and web payments, especially for payments across borders. They may also be interested in encouraging ecommerce, particularly for small to medium sized enterprises.

Large web businesses like Amazon, eBay, facebook and paypal have well established payment solutions, but nonetheless may be interested in simplifying the efforts needed from web developers and end users to compete with the ease of use now found in native mobile and tablet apps.

MasterCard and VISA are starting to address the potential for virtual cards in eWallets as opposed to plastic cards in real wallets. Virtual cards offer the potential for greater ease of use, and open standards would accelerate their uptake, whether used with web applications hosted in the cloud, or web applications installed directly in people's phones. There is also the idea of using your phone to pay when visiting ecommerce sites on your desktop or connected TV.