Point-of-sale customer identification system

• US 20050080693A1
• Filed: 04/21/2004
• Published: 04/14/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Compucredit Intellectual Property Holdings Corporation II
• Original Assignee: Compucredit Intellectual Property Holdings Corporation II
• Inventors: Foss, Sheldon H. Jr., James, Dennis H. Jr.
• Application Number:
  US10/829,056
• Publication Number:
  US 20050080693A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2107 File encryption
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2117 User registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/18 involving self-service terminals [SST], vending machines, kiosks or multimedia terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/347 Passive cards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/33 by means of a password
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/0014 for vending, access and use of specific services not covered anywhere else in G07F17/00 meter-controlled dispensing of liquid, gas or electricity G07F15/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/10 together with a coded signal , e.g. in the form of personal identification information, like personal identification number [PIN] or biometric data
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1008 Active credit-cards provided with means to personalise their use, e.g. with PIN-introduction/comparison system
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1025 Identification of user by a PIN code
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1075 PIN is checked remotely
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/0018 Constructional details, e.g. of drawer, printing means, input means
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/12 electronically operated digital data processing aspects G06Q20/00

Abstract

Point-of-sale customer identification is provided. One embodiment is a merchant teminal comprising: a scanner for scanning a personal identification document corresponding to a customer requesting a point-of-sale transaction; and logic configured to identify customer data from a scanned image of the personal identification document. Another embodiment is a method implemented by a merchant terminal comprising: scanning a personal identification document corresponding to a customer; and generating customer data from a scanned image of the personal identification document.

Claims

1. A merchant terminal comprising:

a scanner for scanning a personal identification document corresponding to a customer requesting a point-of-sale transaction; and

logic configured to identify customer data from a scanned image of the personal identification document.

2. The merchant terminal of claim 1, further comprising at least one template corresponding to at least one type of personal identification document.

3. The merchant terminal of claim 2, wherein the at least one type of personal identification document comprises one of a driver'"'"'s license, personal identification card, and a passport.

4. The merchant terminal of claim 1, wherein the scanner comprises a templated scanner configured to automatically determine the type of personal identification document being scanned.

5. The merchant terminal of claim 1, wherein the logic configured to identify customer data from the scanned image comprises software stored in memory and executed by a processor.

6. The merchant terminal of claim 1, wherein the logic configured to identify customer data from the scanned image comprises an optical character recognition (OCR) engine.

7. The merchant terminal of claim 6, wherein the OCR engine is configured to generate a text file containing text from the personal information document.

8. The merchant terminal of claim 7, further comprising logic configured to generate customer data based on a comparison of the text file to a document template corresponding to the personal identification document.

9. The merchant terminal of claim 1, further comprising logic configured to process the point-of-sale transaction using the customer data.

10. The merchant terminal of claim 9, wherein the point-of-sale transaction comprises one of a pre-paid card purchase, a point-of-sale purchase, a pre-paid card acceptance, a credit card acceptance, a debit card acceptance, a card-to-card transaction, and a bill payment.

11. The merchant terminal of claim 1, further comprising logic configured to identify at least one scanning error in the customer data.

12. The merchant terminal of claim 11, wherein the scanning error comprises an optical character recognition error.

13. The merchant terminal of claim 11, further comprising logic configured to enable a user to manually input new customer data to correct the at least one scanning error.

14. The merchant terminal of claim 1, further comprising logic configured to validate the customer data.

15. A method of processing a point-of-sale transaction at a merchant terminal, the method comprising:

scanning a personal identification document corresponding to a customer requesting a financial service at a merchant terminal;

generating a scanned image of the personal identification document;

identifying character data in the scanned image; and

comparing the character data to a document template corresponding to the personal identification document to generate customer data.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the generating a scanned image comprises performing an optical character recognition algorithm.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising automatically determining a type of document of which the personal indentification document comprises.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the automatically determining the type of document comprises comparing the scanned image to a document template.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the financial service comprises at least one of a pre-paid card purchase, a point-of-sale purchase, a pre-paid card acceptance, a credit card acceptance, a debit card acceptance, a card-to-card transaction, and a bill payment.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising identifying at least one scanning error and enabling a user to manually input new customer data to correct the at least one scanning error.

21. A method implemented by a merchant terminal, the method comprising:

scanning a personal identification document corresponding to a customer; and

generating customer data from a scanned image of the personal identification document.

22. A financial services system comprising:

a scanner configured to generate a digital image of a customer'"'"'s personal identification document;

an optical character recognition (OCR) engine for converting the digital image into a text file; and

logic configured to generate customer data associated with the text file by comparing the text file to a document template of the personal identification document.

23. The financial services system of claim 22, further comprising a validation module configured to determine at least one OCR error.

24. The financial services system of claim 23, wherein the validation module is further configured to prompt a user to input new customer data corresponding to the at least one OCR error.

25. A point-of-sale merchant terminal comprising:

means for scanning a customer'"'"'s personal identification document; and

means for identifying customer data from the scanned image of the personal identification document.

26. The point-of-sale merchant terminal of claim 25, further comprising means for providing a financial service based on the identified customer data.