Business event triggered, policy-driven payment management

• US 20040002918A1
• Filed: 06/26/2002
• Published: 01/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Peters, Mark E., McCarthy, Julia K., Moryadas, George H., Watkins, Andrea J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,558,758 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/405 Establishing or using transaction specific rules
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/42 Confirmation, e.g. check or permission by the legal debtor of payment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for using business events as triggers to drive payment processing for electronic commerce. As the business logic of a merchant'"'"'s c-commerce software application reaches various stages that impact payment considerations, it issues a corresponding event notification. According to preferred embodiments, these event notifications are processed by a policy engine, which locates policy information or rules previously configured for that event. Actions are then carried out, based on the configured policy. The merchant e-commerce application is therefore shielded from the details of the underlying payment processing. New payment types can be provided, and existing payment types can be modified if necessary, by adding/modifying policies; the merchant'"'"'s e-commerce application does not need to change. This event-driven model allows application developers to focus on creating software for the merchant'"'"'s key business requirements, and makes it easier to maintain the software.

Claims

9. A method for providing a policy-driven payment processing system, comprising steps of:

providing a plurality of payment-processing policies, each of the policies specifying how payment transactions for a payment method should be carried out;

selecting, by a merchant that will use the policy-driven payment processing system, one or more of the provided policies;

receiving business event notifications representing payment processing units;

programmatically determining the selected policy that corresponds to each of the payment processing units represented by the received notifications; and

applying each of the programmatically-determined policies to the corresponding payment processing units, thereby moving payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

10. A system for automated processing of payments, comprising:

means for receiving a business event notification signifying that a payment processing unit has reached a particular business stage;

means for programmatically determining a payment-processing policy that has been selected as applying to this payment processing unit; and

means for programmatically determining zero or more actions to be carried out for this payment processing unit, according to the programmatically-determined policy and a current state of the payment processing unit.

11. The system according to claim 10, further comprising:

means for carrying out the programmatically-determined actions; and

means for revising the current state of the payment processing unit to reflect a result of the actions carried out.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein more than one payment transaction may be applied to a particular payment processing unit.

14. The system according to claim 12, wherein each of the payment transactions represents a different payment method.

15. The system according to claim 11, wherein the actions carried out for the payment processing unit move payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

16. The system according to claim 10, wherein the selected policy is selected from a plurality of payment-processing policies.

13-1. The computer program product according to claim 18, wherein more than one payment method may be applied to a particular payment processing unit.

17. A system for providing policy-driven payment processing, comprising:

means for providing a plurality of payment-processing policies, each of the policies specifying how payment transactions for a payment method should be carried out;

means for selecting, by a merchant that will use the policy-driven payment processing system, one or more of the provided policies;

means for receiving business event notifications representing payment processing units;

means for programmatically determining the selected policy that corresponds to each of the payment processing units represented by the received notifications; and

means for applying each of the programmatically-determined policies to the corresponding payment processing units, thereby moving payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

18. A computer program product for automated processing of payments, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

computer-readable program code means for receiving a business event notification signifying that a payment processing unit has reached a particular business stage;

computer-readable program code means for programmatically determining a payment-processing policy that has been selected as applying to this payment processing unit; and

computer-readable program code means for programmatically determining zero or more actions to be carried out for this payment processing unit, according to the programmatically-determined policy and a current state of the payment processing unit.

1. A method of processing payments, comprising steps of:

receiving a business event notification signifying that a payment processing unit has reached a particular business stage;

programmatically determining a payment-processing policy to be applied to this payment processing unit; and

programmatically determining zero or more actions to be carried out for this payment processing unit, according to the programmatically-determined policy and a current state of the payment processing unit.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of carrying out the programmatically-determined actions.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising the step of revising the current state of the payment processing unit to reflect a result of the actions carried out.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein more than one payment transaction may be applied to a particular payment processing unit.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein more than one payment method may be applied to a particular payment processing unit.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein each of the payment transactions represents a different payment method.

7. The method according to claim 2, wherein the actions carried out for the payment processing unit move payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the selected policy is selected from a plurality of payment-processing policies.

13. The system according to claim 10, wherein more than one payment method may be applied to a particular payment processing unit.

19. The computer program product according to claim 18, further comprising:

computer-readable program code means for carrying out the programmatically-determined actions; and

computer-readable program code means for revising the current state of the payment processing unit to reflect a result of the actions carried out.

20. The computer program product according to claim 18, wherein more than one payment transaction may be applied to a particular payment processing unit.

22. The computer program product according to claim 20, wherein each of the payment transactions represents a different payment method.

23. The computer program product according to claim 19, wherein the actions carried out for the payment processing unit move payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

24. The computer program product according to claim 18, wherein the selected policy is selected from a plurality of payment-processing policies.

25. A computer program product for providing policy-driven payment processing, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

computer-readable program code means for providing a plurality of payment-processing policies, each of the policies specifying how payment transactions for a payment method should be carried out;

computer-readable program code means for selecting, by a merchant that will use the policy-driven payment processing system, one or more of the provided policies;

computer-readable program code means for receiving business event notifications representing payment processing units;

computer-readable program code means for programmatically determining the selected policy that corresponds to each of the payment processing units represented by the received notifications; and

computer-readable program code means for applying each of the programmaticallydetermined policies to the corresponding payment processing units, thereby moving payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

26. The computer program product according to claim 25, further comprising computer-readable program code means for overriding the programmatically-determined selection of policy pg,49 upon receipt of a first of the business event notifications that represents a payment processing unit, thereby selecting a different policy to be used by the computer-readable program code means for applying.

27. The computer program product according to claims 26, wherein the computer-readable program code means for overriding considers one or more of:

an amount of the payment processing unit; and

an identification of a customer for whom the payment processing unit is to be processed.