With the adoption of superior technology, financial services have undergone a metamorphosis. E-Broking has become a reality with immense benefits to the investors, especially in terms of lower transaction cost, transparency and convenience. Brokers are also benefited by better risk management, greater business potential and lower costs.
The growth of Internet is dramatically changing everyday life, with the World Wide Web transforming the world into a digital global village. Customers and users have become netizens, who expect everything to happen at the click of the mouse. Over the last few centuries, we have two major revolutions—the industrial and electronic. The former transformed our society from agriculture to industry-based whereas the latter transformed our society from being mechanical to electronics-based. As we enter the 21st Century, we are experiencing a new revolution, namely the network revolution. It interconnects different parts of the world, enabling the seamless flow of information. The Internet is the engine of this revolution and electronic commerce is the fuel.
In the mid-1990s, the term `Web economy' had not yet been coined; it is now a common phrase in business circles. However, Internet is neither a sweeping change nor a banal of force. Prof. Hanson, in his book (2001) Principles of Internet Marketing, beautifully sums up the real situation as: "The Internet is definitely a force with potential to change the ways the world operates, though not overnight… It is slowly entering our lives and becoming as ubiquitous as electricity… It is improving cost-efficiencies, catalyzing disintegration, and increasing convenience for businesses and their consumers." With the advent of Internet technologies and advanced cryptographic techniques, it is now feasible to implement e-commerce and e-business over a public network—the Internet. |
