The Public Policy Lab this month addressed Singapore Management University’s Master of Tri-Sector Collaboration course, with the topic: Technology trends: the policy, business and social impacts.

One of the courses focused on eCommerce and ePayments, and included reading materials produced by eBay Inc’s Public Policy Lab.

The course was addressed by Sassoon Grigorian, Director of Public Policy Asia Pacific.

The presentation covered 3 themes, eCommerce and ePayments today; upcoming trends and its regulatory implications.

Sassoon covered issues such as the rise of micro multinationals - eBay sellers, most of whom are SMEs selling globally; the rapid development of payments from a transaction to enabling customer experience and becoming frictionless; and ‘smart commerce’, where smart or Internet connected devices talk to one another to enable a transaction and commerce.

Among the regulatory implications explored included privacy and definitions, data localization, intermediary liability, and epayments harmonisation, among other issued.