Amazon is testing FPS, a flexible payments system, that will provide competition for eBay's PayPal and Google's Checkout. It's not really a new payment system like, say, eBay, but allows peoploe to accumulate micropayments and then collect them via an existing payment mechanism. Amazon's Werner Vogels says:
Amazon FPS changes the way developers can charge their customers. Using a capability called "Payment Instructions" developers can easily create the charging model that works best for them. For example, they can charge customers in small increments until their accumulated balance reaches a limit, pay a percentage of a digital transaction as a royalty, earn a commission on a marketplace transaction, or allow one customer to pay for another customer and limit their usage to a specific amount. Payment Instructions give developers the flexibility to build multiple charging models that exactly meet their needs.
It would be useful if someone compared the main systems, but Amazon vs. Paypal vs. Google Checkout doesn't really do that.
Werner Vogels appeared in the Guardian a couple of years ago in my column about the epidemic approach to e-commerce, Organised gossip.
