Six key requirements must be met in order to have a successful micropayment product:

1. Transaction Speed and Merchant Throughput
Transaction speed is vital for consumer convenience, and for low-ticket merchants who often measure the efficiency of their business based on the number of customers processed per minute.

2. Ubiquity
The main attribute of cash is ubiquity - universal acceptance by all merchants. This is essential for consumer acceptance. Consumers need a payment instrument that is widely accepted at locations where they make their everyday small cash purchases.

3. Failure and Maintenance Free
Consumers should never fail to make a purchase due to an insufficient amount of cash or electronic cash in their wallet. Also, consumers should not have to worry about the balance in their wallet or electronic purse. They should not need to visit ATM’s or electronic cash loading devices in order to maintain sufficient balance in their wallet.

4. No Charge-backs and Onerous Paperwork
Merchants do not want charge-backs and time consuming/expensive transaction records paperwork.

5. Transaction Economics
A micropayment product must provide profitability for both issuers and acquirers with fees acceptable to the merchants. This is essential for wide acceptance by low-ticket merchants (ubiquity). Wide acceptance by low-ticket merchants is the key requirement for consumer acceptance.

6. Aggregation
Issuers do not want a large number of micropayments on monthly statements because of the added costs (more paper, postage, customer service calls…). Likewise, consumers want to avoid clutter on monthly statements. Still, any system needs to be capable of reconciliation.