I'm sure like me you are mighty glad you weren't born in the days when to get the bacon for breakfast you had to collect a pound of apples from the orchard, or some other produce you created to feed the family, in order to barter for those crisp, succulent rashers.

These days we have that wonderful exchange commodity known as money, moolah, bread, dosh - or whatever slang term happens to prevail in your neck of the woods.

A good job, too! Makes life kind of easier, doesn't it? - that's if you've got enough of the green stuff!

Actually, I have nightmares of modern-day, power-hungry governments withdrawing the stuff, now that plastic is on the rampage in the form of a multitude of bank cards.

It isn't always convenient to pay with plastic. In fact there are many, many ways that still remain where a dollar bill or a cent coin is required to do the business. But the politicians are drooling at the prospect of not just saving on all the printing costs down at the mint, but when they get every financial transaction onto plastic and into computers, the treasury will be super-boosted by all the taxes that previously slipped through the cracks!

The Internet, of course, is a prime example of how we need plastic to make any business enterprise work. After all, what's the point of ordering some gizmo online and then having to send fifty bucks through snailmail and wait an eternity for delivery?

Mistrust in giving card details to individual websites heralded-in the payment processors - the PayPals, StormPays and Moneybookers of this world. They do a great job - well, most times - but in protecting their operations from the malicious hackers and fraudsters, they frequently shoot themselves in the foot.

They fail to stop some intruders, often because subscribers have been careless with their access details, but worse comes when they freeze individual accounts on the strength of unproven complaints. If you are on the end of this, it's a bit like being tried and convicted for a crime you didn't commit on the say-so of a total stranger.

It's so one-sided and unfair. There have been many instances of businesses going to the wall simply because an account has been unjustifiably frozen, thereby totally paralising cashflow. Do they care . . . ? I wonder!

So in comes plastic again - this time "direct plastic". These days, and in the future moreso, pre-paid debit cards allow for the loading of "the plastic" with money to pay for things online and to receive money direct to the card for withdrawal from any ATM machine in any currency worldwide.

So now you can put up your service or product onto the web, take a payment and cash it out almost right away into your wallet. No middleman and not tied to a bank account, because you don't need one.

The possibilities are endless and whereas there are charges for the various transactions, just as with the processors, it's cheaper and a lot more user-friendly.

At long last we can be in complete control of our own affairs. Websites like Debit Card Pay list all the various options. Some debit cards now carry a Visa or MasterCard authorisation to make their usage even more acceptable to merchants worldwide. These are the ones to go for. It'll cost you anywhere from $35 and upwards to get started, but when you do, you'll never look back.

Dave West, Linton Press, invest@fsmail.net