A payclick account – which can be funded from any Visa, MasterCard or bank account – enables consumers to pay online without sharing personal details or financial information with sellers.

Part of Visa’s global innovation strategy, payclick has been developed to respond to the needs of consumers and sellers of lower priced downloadable content. Analysis undertaken by Investment Trends indicates that there will be some $646 million of online micropayments (online transactions under $20) in Australia during 2010 across the online gaming, music and micro retail sectors1

Today, Big Pond Games, Big Pond Music, Flexischools, Habbo, iTunes and Kids Help Line were announced as the first sellers to accept payclick.

Chris Clark, General Manager Visa, Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific, said: “Visa has been making ecommerce payments as safe, reliable and convenient as possible since the advent of online shopping. With global ecommerce continuing to grow at more than 10 percent2 annually, payclick continues this process. We know consumers seek convenience, security and value when shopping online – and payclick offers a secure way to pay.”

Greg Storey, General Manager, payclick, said: “payclick is designed to meet growing consumer demand for digital content, such as music, games and movies. payclick accounts are suitable for the different needs of family members, including those under 18 years old..

“We are providing a solution for sellers to monetise their content and services. We see payclick’s potential to expand their market reach and unlock new revenue streams. We are confident payclick’s benefits will inspire many more online sellers to explore how our system can help them connect with new customers.”

For consumers, payclick offers:

• payclick provides consumers with a single, commonly accepted account – one password to authorise purchases from a range of sellers
• The ‘Sponsored Account’ feature enables parents to set up accounts for their teens, allowing them to buy online safely and securely while parents control the amount spent and monitor purchases
• The choice of how to fund their payclick account, using a Visa, MasterCard or bank account
• Once an account is set up, the customer clicks the payclick button on participating merchant sites and enters a password to authorise their purchase
• An automated top-up function to transfer funds to the account on a regular basis
• A detailed transaction history that helps users track their online purchases
• Express purchasing options that help further streamline the buying experience

For sellers, key features include:

• payclick is a new, easy way to pay, with accounts suitable for the different needs of family members including under 18 years
• payclick has been developed specifically to make selling lower priced digital content easier and more profitable
• payclick provides increased security and efficiency by managing all sensitive card or bank account information
• payclick has automated dispute handling to resolve issues quickly and cost-effectively.

It is understood the online mall will be led by fashion, which the company sees as its strongest attraction, and split into categories including electronics and books.

Content on the web is blossoming. It’s growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people’s expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish.

Mikal Belicove asked Googler, Matt Cutts  how this will impact businesses:

“The main difference is that businesses will see searchers arriving faster on their websites because Caffeine can index pages much more quickly than our previous system. The nice thing is that Google users will see fresher results without users (or business owners) needing to do anything special.

Business owners can find ways to put this additional freshness to work for them. For example, owners might want to consider putting limited-time promotions on their website, since people will be able to find those promotions more quickly while they still apply.”

National Cyber Security Awareness Week 2010 is from 6 to 11 June. It will promote six easy tips for better online security:

1. Install security software and update it regularly.
2. Turn on automatic updates so that all your software receives the latest fixes.
3. Get a stronger password and change it at least twice a year.
4. Stop and think before you click on links or attachments.
5. Stop and think before you share any personal or financial information?about yourself or your friends and family.
6. Know what your children are doing online. Make sure they know to stay safe and encourage them to report anything suspicious.

For more information, please visit: http://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/