For those of you who don't know about the service and/or don't want to browse the technical pages and cookbook, Google Checkout allows for payment processing, and seamless shopping cart and fulfillment systems integration. This is done by implementing Web services to interact with Google's. There are great advantages to this, and one of them is that the merchant won't need to handle cardholder information; they wouldn't need to worry (too much) about security and compliance.
There's is one similar service being offered in the region: Ez Pagos Centro América (as in E-Z Payment Central America). Internally, they might be using Web services, but externally, they use a PHP interface to receive variables from customers (subscribed merchants), and they process credit card payments on their website. Considering the implemented technology, it should be tougher to integrate existing backoffice systems to their service.
On the security side, nonetheless, Ez Pagos doesn't really talk too much about it on their website. An online demo of an E-Commerce site using their system has been defaced for a little while.
There are still some challenges to overcome in the region, most importantly in the way business plans are developed. As in any planning process, if you overlook (or simply forget) little aspects, they could become big issues after deployment, not only in the IT area, but also in marketing, customer service, etc. Hopefully, we may see more offerings in transaction brokerage in the future.
As a region, we need to focus on obtaining the right technical personnel, whether it's outsourced or internal to the organization. Schools, colleges, and the private sector, should see the need for more specialized certification, as in information security, E-Commerce, and E-Business in general.
