hi what i need to know covers two areas. - both in a programming sense and a legal sense. I'm just starting to learn server side programming (RoR) so my knowledge on what can be done with money transactions on net is limited. I'll try and be as concise as possible. 1.can a user authorise a site or web app to automatically deduct x amount of money from a bank account at a specified time? I know this can be done with credit cards,but i would like to not be solely reliant on that. 2. Say then that i wanted to take that amount deducted and authorised and split it up and then pay multiple people ..is it possible to route the money directly from 1 persons account and forward it digitally to other users accounts? Is that considered hacking? (it's not supposed to,especially if transactions are authorised and from what little i read on paypal api 3rd party auth and api certification) (this is hard to explain unless I actually explain the web app idea which i prefer not to) 1 solution i came up with is routing it via paypal or setting up a digital cash system. (ecash/digital cash). For the sake of simplicity,i really don't want to set up a bank account for monies that will be incoming and outgoing all the time. it would be easier if the money could be deducted >info is sent to web app servers to process>forwarded to relevant bank accounts. well if your still reading this far,and i haven't confused the heck out of you-thankyou for listening! I see several options. (I'm just paraphrasing) keeping in mind all transactions would be authorised by user(I guess my web app would be a 3rd party)oh and i'm talking billing subscription service..what i'm trying to understand is for a feature in web app itself. 1. payment deducted from user A's bank account (or paypal)>routed through web app>payments to users B and C's bank accounts(or paypal). (no "holding bank acc" 2. a digital cash system is set up where the money deducted from user a's acc is sent into digicash system in web app,which is then split up to pay user B and C. 3.use paypal as the digital cash system. I get this feeling i'm missing something obvious. I've seen terms like redirect authentication method. EFT etc unless i do need to set up bank acc to handle it all. I was thinking of seeking out verisign,BBBonline and hackersafe certification(if i need that so banks can trust me/the application-seems as i'll be sole proprietor) any clarification would be appreciated.