Law of E-commerce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Law of E-commerce - Essay Example With all arsenals pointed at streamlining electronic money institutions through legal, supervisory principles, the binding implementation provisions found quite a number of disparate legislative instruments that tended to hinder the functionality of the directives. The 2000 directives were the first attempts by the Union to harmonize EU e-money banking practices through legal frameworks (Vereecken, 2000). Unknown to the policy drafters was that the directives were headed for major legislative thrusts, which has since prompted the revision of e-Europe Action Plan on the same but with no tangible improvement as once anticipated. The provisions of the action plan of 2005 being the main EU e-money policy blueprint in this area was an updated version deliberated upon since 2000 (Penn, 2005). Indeed, the period of euphoria that characterized the adoption of the directive seemed to have died leaving the future of e-money regulatory legislations much less promising than never imagined. As a matter of fact, many new ideas never sprouted beyond their piloting stages. In essence, The EU e-Money directives were much more of wasted efforts than gainful strategies given that e-Money technology, to a grater extent, remains a figment of salesmen’s imaginations. Background of E-Money Regulations When e-money made a debut into the banking scene, almost all financial institutions in North America as well as the entire Europe took a noticeably stance well armed with different regulatory mechanisms. Rather than a ‘wait and see’ approach adopted by the United States, EU member states took immediate steps, to regulate e-money as soon as the technology appeared (European Commission, 2002). As early as 1994, EMI had recommended that only bank-issue e-money be legalized (EMI 1994; DeGeest 2001). The immediate established target as insinuated above comprised of standardizing measures with a wide spectrum of actions that included access to the Internet, as well as rais ing consumer confidence in IT-supported learning networks embodied in new electronic payment systems. Against a backdrop of concerns from different financial quarters, EU Commission pursued perspective was that proliferation of e-money without regulations could inhibit the proper functioning of the money market and stifle competition as well as innovation in the payment sector. What followed was a draft of directives on the same (EU Commission, 1998). Action Plans set out to achieve the objectives of the EU included numerous legislative measures. Among these were the Directive 2000/28/EC of the European Parliament in conjunction with the EU Council Directive 2000/12/EC touching on the conduct of business of credit institutions forming the first batch of e-Money Directives (EMI Directive, 2000a; 2000b). The second batch of e-Money Directives was the Directive 2000/46/EC from the same intuitions touching on prudential supervision of electronic money institutions (Long and Casanova, 20 02; 2003; EMI Directive, 200