Digital cash and electronic checks are both ways to purchase goods and services over the Internet but they can be a little too complex for both vendors and consumers alike. This is where online credit cards come into play. Paying by credit card in the cyber world is fast and efficient. It is also a simple stream lined procedure. If a consumer wishes to purchase a good or service online all he or she needs to do is provide his/her credit card details to the service provider and from there the credit card company does their part to make sure that the payment goes through.

Automatic billing can take the bite and the frustration out of paying your credit card bill. In this case you would set up your online credit card account in such a way that the payments would come out of your checking account every month.

You can use your credit card to make purchases in the cyber world but you can also use your debit card as well. Or you can use one at one site and the other at another. The choice is yours. There are differences between using a credit card and a debit card online. Let us look at them now.

However a lack of encryption means a low level of security and this can be risky and very problematic to use. In this instance authentication is often a big problem and it falls to the vendor to determine that the individual using the credit card for payment is the real owner of the card. Not having encryption can cause a number of unfortunate problems to arise.

The second category is making payments using the details of encrypted credit cards. What would make the most sense is to ensure that the credit cards details are encrypted before they are used online. However there are specific factors to take into consideration in this case. One consideration is the cost of making the credit card transaction.

If you were to check your bank balance online immediately after making a purchase then you would see that the money has been taken from your account. When you use a debit card cash can be taken out of your bank account from the merchant who is accepting the card or from an ATM machine.

Finally, the third category for credit card payment online is payments that use third party verification. In fact one solution that has been proposed for security and verification problems that can arise is to introduce a third party to the equation. This third party would be one that a company could use to collect as well as approve credit card payments from one consumer to another. After a particular duration of time has gone by one credit card transaction for the total that has been accumulated is then completed.

Vendors need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each category. Consumers also need to be aware of the good and bad points of each type of credit card payment online network.