Electronic commerce and electronic business greatly need new payment systems that will support their further development. This paper discusses issues of user acceptance of electronic payment systems by mass customers and presents results of a user survey on conventional and ele ctronic payment systems that was conducted with the purpose to discover user attitudes towards their chara cteristic properties. The paper presents issues of users acceptance and guiding principles on design of electronic pay- ment systems with high level of user acceptance, which can be a key point in under- standing directions for further development of electronic payment sys tems.