"Consumer demand typically drives the adoption of new products and services, but the rollout of Passport services is clearly not following that general rule," Gartner analyst Avivah Litan said in a statement. "Most consumers are signing up because they have to and not because of a strong interest in the convenience features Passport offers."

The technology certainly exists, but the promise of e-signatures has fizzled in the face of security concerns, competing e-signature standards and the fact that people still like to handle paper when it comes to big deals.

Whatever system or systems replace cash, it could, because of its convenience and ubiquity, replace credit cards and checks as well. The owners of digital transactions could then levy a „toll‰ (almost invisible to the consumer) on billions of transactions, and could build even more lucrative businesses related to the transaction˜exactly as credit card companies have done. What is more, companies at the center of multiple transactions will be in an extraordinary position˜extraordinary because owning retail transactions, for instance, would provide insight into the flow of transactions. And that information can be leveraged with sellers and suppliers in the areas of customer insight and supply chain management.

Celent Communications predicts ACH and closed-end networks-based payments will capture 7% market share of US e-commerce by 2005. Alternative payment solutions will thrive thanks to "niche markets," which will account for 25% of e-commerce by 2005. In a new report, Innovation in Internet Payments: The Plot Against Credit Cards, Celent examines the competition between cards and emerging payment solutions in non-recurring Internet payments. Celent predicts non-card solutions will capture 7% market share by in 2005, up from 3% in 2001.

"This is 7-Eleven's second effort focused on designing a financial kiosk for "third-shift workers and the underserved in financial services, such as immigrants, legal and illegal," said Charles Lemos, an analyst at Deutsche Bank LLC in New York. He said 7-Eleven is a major provider of money orders, check-cashing services, money transfers and other financial transactions to the 20% of U.S. residents who don't have bank accounts. According to the company, it sold $4 billion worth of money orders last year."