² Report to the Council of the European Monetary Institute on Prepaid Cards by the Working Group on EU Payment Systems, May 1994.

³ Australian Notes Act 1910 (CTH); Bank Notes Tax Act 1910 (CTH). See Tyree, Banking Law in Australia, Butterworths, 1995, p2ff.

[4] California Bankers Association v Schultz 416 US 21 (1975) at 85.

[5] For an entertaining, and frightening, example of what might be done, see Van Tassel, "Daily Surveillance Sheet from a Nationwide Databank" (1987) 24 Computers and People 31.

⁶ In an effort to combat money laundering the United States has recently ceased the issue of notes with a face value of more than $100: see Wenninger and Laster, "The Electronic Purse" in (1995) Current Issues in Economics and Finance 1.

⁷ "Cash dealer" is defined in the Financial Transactions Reports Act 1988 (CTH). The term includes entities as disparate as banks and bookmakers.

⁸ AUSTRAC is the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, formally the Cash Transaction Reports Agency.

⁹ The Code requires only that an independent mechanism be established. The most elaborate of these mechanisms is the Australian Banking Industry Ombudsman.

¹⁰ One suggestion is that the card be programmed so that transactions for more than some threshold amount would require a PIN to complete.

[11] See "Smart Cards" (1995) 6 JBFLP 297 for a discussion of the confused terminology relating to "open" and "closed" smart card systems.

[12] The promise may, of course, be conditional. If the value of the transaction exceeds a certain floor limit the merchant may be required to obtain prior approval to accept the card. In Australia at least the value is subject to reversal in the event of a purchaser-merchant dispute.

[13] This is not, of course, entirely true. When the entire system collapses it may be necessary to resort to general law principles to unravel liabilities. So, for example, if the card issuer fails, it may be necessary to consider the legal nature of payment by credit card; see Re Charge Card Services Ltd [1986] 3 All ER 289 and generally, Tyree, Banking Law in Australia, Butterworths, 1995 at p. 300.

¹⁴ There is also the technical legal problem of consideration which is not discussed here. The problem is similar to that posed by documentary letters of credit and the solution will no doubt be similar: see Ellinger, Documentary Letters of Credit, Singapore, 1970.

¹⁵ These general promises are not without precedent since they are quite similar to the promise made by a bank who issues a "negotiable" documentary letter of credit: see Banco Nacional Ultramiarino v First National Bank of Boston 289 F 169 (1923) for a classical example. By analogy with the letter of credit, there may be some "fraud exception" which could apply to the presentment of digital coins.

¹⁶ Bank notes were the common form of currency in Australia until the first issue of the Commonwealth notes in 1910. This was accompanied by the imposition of a tax on bank notes which led to their rapid demise although bank notes were issued in Tasmania until the 1930s. See Tyree, Banking Law in Australia, Butterworths, 1995, p2.

[17] Note that the real problem here is finding a mechanism to settle the dispute, that is, it is a consumer protection problem.

¹⁸ See The Assunzione [1954] P 150; [1954] 1 All ER 278. The connecting factors seemed evenly divided between French and Italian law. The Court placed considerable weight on the fact that the contract called for the charterers to pay freight and demurrage at Naples in Italian currency.

¹⁹ The Utah Digital Signature Act 1996.

²⁰ Section 401.