Merchant financing system

• US 10,445,826 B1
• Filed: 09/19/2014
• Issued: 10/15/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.)
• Inventors: Poursartip, Ariana, Scott, John Bryan, Teh, Kevin
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Hai
• Application Number:
  US14/491,958
• Time in Patent Office: 1,852 Days
• Field of Search: 705 38
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/214 Generating training patterns; Bootstrap methods, e.g. bagging or boosting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof

Abstract

A payment system can determine whether a merchant is eligible for a cash advance for a particular amount, along with a fee for the cash advance. The particular amount can be determined by evaluating previous financial transactions that were conducted by the merchant through the payment system. Once a determination is made that the merchant is eligible for the cash advance, the payment system can send an offer for the cash advance in the particular amount to the merchant, for example, in the form of an e-mail or text. The merchant can accept the offer for the cash advance by sending an acceptance to the payment system, for example, through a financing interface provided by the payment system. Upon accepting the offer, the merchant is provided the cash advance for the particular amount, for example, in the form of an electronic deposit in a financial account of the merchant.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by one or more processors, from a plurality of merchant computing devices associated with a plurality of merchants, transaction information of transactions performed between the plurality of merchants and a plurality of customers, each merchant computing device having a respective instance of a merchant application installed thereon for configuring the merchant computing device as a point-of-sale computing device, the merchant application further configuring the merchant computing device to communicate the transaction information over a network to the one or more processors;

training, by the one or more processors, a classifier with training data including the transaction information of the transactions performed between the plurality of merchants and the plurality of customers;

inputting, by the one or more processors, to the trained classifier, information about a first merchant determined from the transaction information received from a first point of sale computing device associated with the first merchant, the information related to transactions that were conducted between the first merchant and customers of the first merchant;

determining, by the one or more processors, based on an output from the trained classifier, that the first merchant is eligible for financing and further determining, based on the output, an amount of financing and terms of the financing;

sending, by the one or more processors, to the first point of sale computing device of the first merchant, an electronic communication that causes an offer for the financing, including the amount of the financing, to be presented in a user interface on the first point of sale computing device;

receiving, by the one or more processors, from the first point of sale computing device of the first merchant, an electronic communication indicating receipt, via the user interface, of an acceptance of the offer for the financing; and

in response to receiving the electronic communication indicating the acceptance of the offer for the financing, sending, by the one or more processors, an instruction to cause the amount of the financing to be provided to a financial account of the first merchant.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the training data is derived at least from the transaction information received by the one or more processors, and includes, for each merchant of the plurality of merchants, one or more of:

a payment collection history, a type of business, a gross payment volume over a time period, a gross payment volume growth over time, and a business location.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the amount of the financing is based at least in part on an evaluation of an amount collected by the first merchant through previous financial transactions that were conducted by the first merchant via the first point of sale computing device through a payment processing service provided by the one or more processors.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein sending the electronic communication that causes the offer for the financing to be presented in the user interface on the first point of sale computing device of the first merchant further comprises:

sending, to the first point of sale computing device of the first merchant, the electronic communication, including information that describes the offer for the financing;

wherein the electronic communication is sent to the first point of sale computing device of the first merchant without the first merchant having requested the financing.

5. A payment system comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising;

receiving, by the one or more processors, from a plurality of merchant computing devices associated with a plurality of merchants, transaction information of transactions performed between the plurality of merchants and a plurality of customers, each merchant computing device having a respective instance of a merchant application installed thereon for configuring the merchant computing device as a point-of-sale device, the merchant application further configuring the merchant computing device to communicate the transaction information over a network to the one or more processors;

training, by the one or more processors, a classifier with training data including the transaction information of the transactions performed between the plurality of merchants and the plurality of customers;

inputting, by the one or more processors, to the trained classifier, information about a first merchant determined from the transaction information received from a first merchant computing device related to transactions that were conducted between the first merchant and customers;

determining, by the one or more processors, based on an output from the trained classifier, that the first merchant is eligible for financing and further determining, based on the output, an amount of financing and terms of the financing;

sending, by the one or more processors, to the first merchant computing device, an electronic communication that causes an offer for financing to be presented in a user interface on the first merchant computing device;

receiving, by the one or more processors, from the first merchant computing device, an electronic communication indicating receipt, via the user interface, of an acceptance of the offer for the financing;

in response to receiving the electronic communication indicating the acceptance of the offer for the financing sending, by the one or more processors, an instruction to cause the amount of the financing to be provided to an account associated with the first merchant.

6. The payment system of claim 5, wherein the operation of sending the instruction to cause the amount of the financing to be provided to the account associated with the first merchant further comprises:

automatically providing, through the payment system, an electronic deposit in the amount of the financing to the account of the first merchant with a financial institution, wherein the financial institution and the payment system are different entities.

7. The payment system of claim 5, wherein the offer for the financing is sent to the first merchant computing device without the first merchant having requested the financing.

8. The payment system of claim 5, the operations further comprising:

receiving a request to process at least one financial payment transaction that conducted by the first merchant via the first merchant computing device;

processing the at least one financial payment transaction for the first merchant;

determining that the first merchant has not repaid the financing; and

deducting a portion of funds from the at least one financial payment transaction for repayment of the financing.

9. The payment system of claim 5, wherein the operation of receiving, from the first merchant computing device, the electronic communication indicating receipt, via the user interface, of an acceptance of the offer for the financing further comprises:

receiving, from the first computing device of the first merchant, data describing a request for financing in an amount that is less than the amount of the financing in the offer; and

determining adjusted terms for the financing in the requested amount that is less than the amount of the financing in the offer;

wherein the first merchant is provided the financing in the requested amount based at least in part on the adjusted terms.

10. The payment system of claim 5, wherein the amount of the financing is determined based at least in part on an evaluation of an amount collected by the first merchant through previous financial transactions that were conducted by the first merchant via the first merchant computing device through the payment system.

11. The payment system of claim 5, wherein the amount of the financing is determined based at least in part on a gross payment volume collected by the first merchant through previous financial transactions that were conducted by the first merchant via the first merchant computing device through the payment system over a specified period of time.

12. The payment system of claim 5, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a request to process at least one financial payment transaction that conducted by the first merchant via the first merchant computing device;

processing the at least one financial payment transaction for the first merchant;

determining that the first merchant has not repaid the financing;

deducting a portion of funds from the at least one financial payment transaction for repayment of the financing;

depositing the portion of funds from the at least one financial payment transaction for repayment of the financing into a financial account of the payment system; and

transmitting, by the one or more processors, a remaining portion of the at least one financial payment transaction for deposit in the account of the first merchant.

13. The payment system of claim 12, wherein the operation of deducting the portion of funds from the at least one financial payment transaction further comprises:

deducting a percentage of an amount collected by the first merchant from the at least one financial payment transaction, the percentage being based on a rate for repayment for the financing.

14. The payment system of claim 12, wherein the operation of deducting the portion of funds from the at least one financial payment transaction further comprises:

deducting a percentage of an amount collected by the first merchant from a plurality of financial payment transactions that were conducted by the first merchant through the payment system over a particular period of time, the percentage being based on a rate for repayment for the financing.

15. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a first merchant computing device associated with a first merchant, from a payment system, an electronic communication including an offer for financing for a particular amount, wherein eligibility for the offer is determined based on a trained classifier trained with transaction information received from a plurality of merchant computing devices associated with a plurality of merchants, respectively, including the first merchant computing device associated with the first merchant, the transaction information describing previous financial transactions that were conducted by the plurality of merchants through the payment system, the trained classifier indicating the first merchant qualifies for the financing;

based at least on receipt of the electronic communication, presenting, by the first merchant computing device, a user interface including the offer for the financing, wherein the offer specifies terms for the financing and the particular amount of the financing determined based at least in part on an evaluation of an amount collected by the first merchant through previous financial transactions that were conducted by the first merchant through the payment system;

sending, by the first merchant computing device, to the payment system, an indication of an acceptance of the offer for the financing received via the user interface; and

receiving, by the first merchant computing device, an indication that a financed amount has been provided to an account associated with the first merchant.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the offer is received by the first merchant computing device associated with the first merchant without the first merchant having requested the financing.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein sending, to the payment system, the indication of the acceptance of the offer for the financing further comprises:

sending, to the payment system, data describing a request received via the user interface for financing in an amount that is less than the particular amount; and

wherein, the indication received by the first merchant computing device that the financed amount has been provided to the account associated with the first merchant further indicates that the financed amount is based on the requested amount.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, further comprising:

sending, by the first merchant computing device, to the payment system, a request to process a payment transaction of a particular transaction amount, the payment transaction being conducted between the first merchant and a customer; and

receiving, from the payment system, an indication of an electronic deposit of an adjusted transaction amount for the payment transaction, wherein the adjusted transaction amount is determined by deducting a portion of the particular transaction amount by the payment system for repayment of the financed amount based at least in part on the terms of the financing.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the user interface presented by the first merchant computing device includes at least one virtual control for specifying a different amount of financing.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein the portion of the particular transaction amount deducted for repayment of the financing is a percentage of the particular transaction amount based on the terms.