34 results about "Card association" patented technology

To encourage widespread implementation of an electronic commerce card authentication system by the numerous different card issuers and merchants, the card association assigns liability for fraudulent transaction based upon a party's compliance with the authentication system. To enable this feature, an embodiment of the card processing system includes the ability to track and record attempts by merchants to initiate authentications, even in circumstances where the card issuer does not support authentication or can not authenticate the card information its receives. A directory server determines whether a card account is capable of being authenticated. If the card issuer cannot authenticate the card account, the directory server instructs the merchant system to attempt authentication with an alternate access control server. The alternate access control server is adapted to communicate an authentication response message with the merchant system indicating that the merchant system attempted an authentication.

Providing a time-of-transaction currency conversion from a merchant's local currency to a cardholder's credit card currency uses a conversion rate developed by reference to the particular merchant, acquirer, card association and issuer. After a merchant has generated an authorization request in the merchant's currency for a transaction by a cardholder in a different currency, the transaction amount in the authorization is converted from the merchant's currency to the currency of the cardholder's issuing currency, and optionally modified to include additional fees. The converted authorization request is then transmitted to the appropriate card association and then to the issuing bank for authorization, with a response returned to the merchant. The cardholder sees and approves the transaction in the cardholder's currency, and in an amount identical to the amount for which he will be billed.

There is described a method and system for managing Internet auction transactions by creating an auction website by, for example, a financial institution. The auction website is accessible by the financial institution's account holders (e.g., holders of checking, savings, credit card, and investment accounts). Thus, all buyers and sellers in auction transactions on the auction site, for example, have accounts with the financial institution, with settlements occurring between the accounts of the users at the financial institution. Payments are debited from the buyer's account(s) with a credit going to the account of the seller, less any fees. All charges occur internally, so no interchange is owed, for example, to a card association in connection with a transaction. Financial institution customers benefit from the system in that buyers and sellers are authenticated and settlement occurs almost instantaneously.

A system for activating a merchandise card and account that permits a card user to initially purchase or reload cash value into a merchandise account using a card issued by an issuer such as a merchant, bank, or card association via a terminal, with or without a PIN, and have the cash value on the card immediately converted to a purchase of proxy merchandise offered by the card issuer, and at the time of account debiting allowing said cardholder to make a final selection of merchandise from the inventory of the issuing merchant. The system operates a network, on a real time or batch basis, that uses a communication system to connect point of sale terminals, remote terminals, and computers operated by card issuers, merchant headquarters, and account processors to issue cards, calculates taxes and merchant costs, converts cash to proxy merchandise, and allows cardholders at the time of debiting their account to substitute the proxy purchase for a final selection of merchandise.

Various systems for managing chargeback, retrieval, and other requests from the card associations, issuing banks, merchant banks, or other financial institutions requiring a merchant's response are disclosed herein. Such systems may include various forms of hardware, software and manual processes intended to: (a) retrieve transaction requests; (b) retrieve merchant's transaction data; (c) gather merchant's data and compile with normalized transaction request data; (d) create response cases; (e) provide merchant notifications; and (f) transmit responses to requestors. With the present invention, these often independent and incompatible processes, including their non-standard data formats, are normalized and compiled into compatible formats that integrate and facilitate the automation of substantially all aspects of a given chargeback process in one embodiment.

There is described a method and system for managing Internet auction transactions by creating an auction website by, for example, a financial institution. The auction website is accessible by the financial institution's account holders (e.g., holders of checking, savings, credit card, and investment accounts). Thus, all buyers and sellers in auction transactions on the auction site, for example, have accounts with the financial institution, with settlements occurring between the accounts of the users at the financial institution. Payments are debited from the buyer's account(s) with a credit going to the account of the seller, less any fees. All charges occur internally, so no interchange is owed, for example, to a card association in connection with a transaction. Financial institution customers benefit from the system in that buyers and sellers are authenticated and settlement occurs almost instantaneously.

A central transaction server in electronic commerce card authorization system enables the electronic commerce card association to manage and monitor the authentication system. The central transaction server acts as an intermediary for all communications between the access control server used for authentication. If any portion of the authentication system fails, the central transaction server compensates by providing appropriate responses to other portions of the system. The centralized transaction server translates all incoming traffic into a format compatible with the intended recipient, enabling portions of the system to be upgraded without breaking compatibility with the non-upgraded portions. The centralized transaction server also enables the integration of formally separate portions of the authentication system into a single unit. The directory and the authentication history servers can be integrated into the central transaction server, and the central transaction server can initiate charges to the electronic commerce card automatically, bypassing the card acquirer.

Providing a time-of-transaction currency conversion from a merchant's local currency to a cardholder's credit card currency uses a conversion rate developed by reference to the particular merchant, acquirer, card association and issuer. After a merchant has generated an authorization request in the merchant's currency for a transaction by a cardholder in a different currency, the transaction amount in the authorization is converted from the merchant's currency to the currency of the cardholder's issuing currency, and optionally modified to include additional fees. The converted authorization request is then transmitted to the appropriate card association and then to the issuing bank for authorization, with a response returned to the merchant. The cardholder sees and approves the transaction in the cardholder's currency, and in an amount identical to the amount for which he will be billed.

A point of sale device (102) establishes a short range secure radio link (105) with a wireless payment device (104) to complete a transaction. The point of sale device transmits the transaction information to the wireless payment device (304) so the a user of the wireless payment device can approve the transaction (306). Upon approving the transaction, the wireless payment device transmits payment information to the point of sale device (308). The point of sale device uses the payment information to contact the appropriate payment source (110) to record the transaction. Upon the payment source confirming the transaction, the brand of the financial institution, card associations, and affinity groups acting as the payment source is announced so as to be observable by those in the vicinity of the point of sale device.

Various systems for managing chargeback, retrieval, and other requests from the card associations, issuing banks, merchant banks, or other financial institutions requiring a merchant's response are disclosed herein. Such systems may include various forms of hardware, software and manual processes intended to: (a) retrieve transaction requests; (b) retrieve merchant's transaction data; (c) gather merchant's data and compile with normalized transaction request data; (d) create response cases; (e) provide merchant notifications; and (f) transmit responses to requestors. With the present invention, these often independent and incompatible processes, including their non-standard data formats, are normalized and compiled into compatible formats that integrate and facilitate the automation of substantially all aspects of a given chargeback process in one embodiment.

A computer-implemented method and system for managing transaction card accounts involves enabling a transaction card account by a card issuer for use with pre-defined categories of providers of goods / services and goods / services sold and issuing a transaction card and establishing an associated pre-qualified category card account. Upon receiving data for a transaction with the transaction card at a transaction terminal by a processing platform of the card issuer via a card association processing network, the category of the provider and goods / services is interrogated to determine whether or not the transaction can be posted on the pre-qualified category card account of the cardholder, and the transaction is approved and posted to the pre-qualified category card account if the transaction falls within the pre-qualified category of the cardholder.

A system and method of payment of an end-user account with a service provider includes a computer system that makes payments to service providers on behalf of end-users and that is operable to exchange information with a terminal at the point of sale or a web-enabled computer system operated by the end-user and with the computer system of the service provider. In one embodiment, the computer system of an intermediary receives a request to make a payment on an end user's account with a service provider. The computer system of the intermediary may communicate with the computer system of the service provider by logging on to the web page of the service provider as the end-user, and entering a universally accepted open system number and the amount of the payment received from the end user's source of funds to effect payment on the end user's account with the service provider. In another preferred embodiment, a payment router together with an issuing / sponsoring bank and a processor, as implemented by their computer systems, facilitate payment transactions in which the router transacts at least thousands of payments for at least hundreds of payors with at least dozens of payees using at least one open system card association network, preferably in a day.

A computer-implemented method and system for managing transaction card accounts involves enabling a transaction card account by a card issuer for use with pre-defined categories of providers of goods / services and goods / services sold and issuing a transaction card and establishing an associated pre-qualified category card account. Upon receiving data for a transaction with the transaction card at a transaction terminal by a processing platform of the card issuer via a card association processing network, the category of the provider and goods / services is interrogated to determine whether or not the transaction can be posted on the pre-qualified category card account of the cardholder, and the transaction is approved and posted to the pre-qualified category card account if the transaction falls within the pre-qualified category of the cardholder.

A computer-implemented method and system for managing transaction card accounts involves enabling a transaction card account by a card issuer for use with pre-defined categories of providers of goods / services and goods / services sold and issuing a transaction card and establishing an associated pre-qualified category card account. Upon receiving data for a transaction with the transaction card at a transaction terminal by a processing platform of the card issuer via a card association processing network, the category of the provider and goods / services is interrogated to determine whether or not the transaction can be posted on the pre-qualified category card account of the cardholder, and the transaction is approved and posted to the pre-qualified category card account if the transaction falls within the pre-qualified category of the cardholder.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for interchange optimization for payment processing. In an embodiment of the invention, an interchange optimization method for payment processing can include receiving a transaction profile for a proposed transaction as payment for a purchase by a purchaser from a merchant at a card processing terminal configured to identify a card number for a card. The method further can include determining a card association for the card number and retrieving criteria for a lowest interchange rate for the card association. The method yet further can include prompting the merchant to provide data required by the retrieved criteria and assembling a transaction for the proposed transaction with the required data. Finally, the method can include routing the assembled transaction to a selected payment processor.

A computer-implemented method and system for managing financial institution customer transaction accounts involves issuing a relationship presentment card with a relationship identifier unique to the customer that is linked to a plurality of the customer's financial institution transaction accounts via pre-defined parameters for determining to which of the customer's linked accounts to post particular transactions with the relationship presentment card. Thereafter, when data for a transaction with the card is received by a processing platform of the financial institution via a merchant acquirer and a card association processing network, the card processing platform of the financial institution identifies a particular financial institution account of the customer to which the transaction should be posted according to the pre-defined parameters based on the transaction data and posts the transaction to the identified financial institution account of the customer.

The present disclosure is related to discounting a price of commodities to a consumer based on purchases made by the consumer with a financial card. A consumer registers with a reward program by providing information associated with a financial card to a reward program provider. The reward program provider may validate the financial card with a financial card provider (e.g., a card association), and, in response to a successful validation of the financial card, may receive, from the financial card provider, a token that may be used to identify purchases made by the consumer using the financial card, and the reward program provider may delete the financial information provided by the consumer during the registration process. The reward program provider may receive information that includes the token and indicates purchases made by the consumer and is used to determine rewards earned by the consumer.