Mobile device over-the-air (OTA) registration and point-of-sale (POS) payment

Abstract

A method for enabling secure registration of a mobile device OTA and for conducting a financial transaction at a point-of-sale (POS) has been described herein. In one embodiment, a method of mobile device registration over-the-air (OTA) comprises enabling a pre-loaded payment application having payment account information; enabling a certificate request; receiving payment credentials; associating the payment credentials with the payment account information; transmitting the payment account information and the certificate request OTA; and receiving a certificate of registration of the mobile device OTA.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority and the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 059,395, filed Jun. 6, 2008; and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 059,907 filed Jun. 9, 2008, the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention generally relates to financial transactions and more particularly to secure financial transactions initiated from an electronic device.[0004]2. Related Art[0005]In direct (face-to-face) or online financial transactions customers may search for and purchase products and / or services from a merchant. In the case of online shopping, transactions are conducted through electronic communications with online merchants over electronic networks. A variety of electronic devices and various electronic techniques may be utilized to conduct such electronic transactions. Methods of initiating or making financial transactions from an electronic device incl...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

A central issue with mobile NFC or other wireless technology is the need for cooperation between the many involved parties to meet the needs of the customer via secure over-the-air (OTA) link.

More specifically, with the ever changing electronic communications environment including the emergence of NFC, service providers may not be ready or willing to change their working methods or the functions they provide, but they may still want to participate in the new mode of service operation by enhancing the services they offer while maintaining existing core processes.

When registering a mobile device or conducting a financial transaction, or for that matter any transaction, security is generally an issue in that data transferred wirelessly will typically include credit card / financial instrument information, a user name, a password, etc., that is susceptible to theft and / or malicious attack.

To the extent that each payment application has its own separate security registration and verification procedures, the user experience may be cumbersome in that a user must separately load and run separate dedicated applications each of which must be separately registered and verified for making secure financial transactions.

Moreover, the security of each of these applications may be compromised by viruses, Trojans, key loggers and the like since the applications and their security information may reside on the same data storage element.

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