It was five years ago today... In the heady days of the infancy of e-commerce, the fate of the well-worn leather wallet bearing fivers seemed sealed. Cash? Soon to be a thing of the past:

Sony to launch e-money scheme (http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/07/13/sony_to_launch_emoney_scheme/)

By Tony Smith
Published Tuesday 13th July 1999 14:51 GMT

Sony is hoping to become a key e-commerce player when it launches a digital currency scheme next year. According to reports in Japanese business paper Nikkei, Sony's e-money programme will operate through its Internet service, So-Net.

Buyers would make payments using a smartcard, swiping the card through a reader connected to their PC to make the transaction. Users would pay Sony to top up their cards with e-money. In that respect, the service resembles the recently launched Magex digital currency (http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/04/natwest_intertrust_launch_ecommerce_currency/), though Magex uses wallet software stored on a PC's hard disk rather than a separate smartcard. The scheme will be tested in public during summer 2000, said Nikkei, with the full roll-out following later in the year.

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In December 2000, Sony reported (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200012/00-1225E/) that it had signed a deal with ten other companies to "start a Prepaid Electronic Money Service called "Edy" for the Japanese domestic market. The joint venture company will be established in January 2001, and full-scale service is due to start in October 2001".

As far as we can tell (http://www.sonyfinance-card.com/edy/), the Edy service still operates in Japan, although the idea never really took off in Europe and the US where the pretty simple idea of getting stuff online with a bog-standard credit/debit card is well established.

The road toward e-commerce nirvana is, as we all know, littered with brave attempts to create alternative e-currencies. The most memorable of the UK efforts was Beenz, which fell by the wayside (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/08/16/beenz_is_dead_official/) in August 2001.

As for Magex - a National Westminster Bank spin-off - it went on to secure a cash injection (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/08/03/beatle_juices_magex/) from none other than Paul McCartney as part of a tentative move into the music download market.

Magex is these days running (http://www.magex.com/) bog-standard online and mobile "payment solutions" for Nat West - with no mention of Paul McCartney, music downloads or, sadly, any form of revolutionary digital currency. ®