Ascendant Corporate Monies: Electronic Money in an Electronic World

In this chapter, we examine the development of corporate monies during the information age, which in practice means electronic money. First, we will examine the early development of electronic payment mechanisms and then examine more current examples. Most of these are based on traditional money in the sense that they symbolize legal tender. However, new forms of money are also emerging. In Chapter 1 it was argued that the banking sector was appearing increasingly ‘divorced’ from the real economy, but also that the real economy has evolved into something new. The examples of some of the significant new structures emerging around the information superhighway are characterized by large numbers of users (tens and hundreds of millions) spread around the global in a very fast changing world. This calls for different business models and the utilization of varying ‘quantities of value’. The example of music downloads (in their billions) from Apple (iTunes and Apps) contrast markedly with the rest of the music industry (based on a different infrastructure of CD/DVDs, distributions and larger value transactions), which seems to be struggling to make a profit. The business models of the traditional music industry are increasingly at odds with the reality of user practices within the information superhighway. This chapter will be exploring some of the foundations of these new forms of electronic money, as well as the electronic representations of the existing money exchange systems.