METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MATCHING PURCHASE TRANSACTION HISTORY TO REAL-TIME LOCATION INFORMATION

• US 20120290389A1
• Filed: 05/09/2011
• Published: 11/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Capital One Services LLC (Capital One Financial Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Finnoble Solutions, Inc. (Capital One Financial Corporation)
• Inventors: Greenough, Joshua M., Geisser, Cameron M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,127,578 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.53
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location

Abstract

Embodiments are described for a system and method for providing a list of current offers from retailers to a user operating a mobile client device. Aspects of the method comprise analyzing a transaction history of the user to identify a vendor who has transacted with the user; determining a present geographic location of the user based on a location of the mobile client device; determining a location of the vendor proximate the user based on the transaction history and the present geographic location of the user; searching for a current promotion offered by the vendor; and facilitating the serving of the current promotion to the user through the mobile client device.

Claims

1. A method of providing a list of current offers from retailers to a user operating a mobile client device, the method comprising:

analyzing a transaction history of the user to identify a vendor who has transacted with the user;

determining a present geographic location of the user based on a location of the mobile client device;

determining a location of the vendor proximate the user based on the transaction history and the present geographic location of the user;

searching for a current promotion offered by the vendor; and

facilitating the serving of the current promotion to the user through the mobile client device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the transaction history comprises one of a card-based payment history through a credit or debit card used by the user, and a mobile payment history using a near field communication (NFC) device.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the card-based payment history is maintained by a payments platform in conjunction with a financial institution managing the credit or debit card.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the location of the vendor proximate the user is derived by:

determining a name of the vendor from the transaction history

determining one or more locations of the vendor within a geographical location encompassing the present geographic location of the user; and

matching a location of the one or more locations that is closest to the present geographic location of the user.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

looking for an exact word match based on a name of a vendor in the transaction history;

excluding known false positive matches for the exact word match;

generating alias variations for the name of the vendor;

looking for an exact word match based on the alias variations; and

excluding false positive matches for the alias variation match.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the present geographic location of the user is provided by one of:

a geolocating component within the mobile client device and a wireless service provider function that locates a user relative to one or more physical sites maintained by the wireless service provider, the method further comprising;

obtaining the present geographic location of the user in latitude/longitude format;

obtaining the one or more locations of the vendor in street address format; and

converting the street address format to corresponding latitude/longitude format for direct comparison with the present geographic location of the user.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising searching for a current promotion offered by the vendor comprises one of executing a web crawler process to search for offers from a matched vendor, and executing an application program interface program to search for offers from a matched vendor.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

looking for an exact match based on an address element the vendor in the current promotion; and

performing a fuzzy search based on ngrams of the address element if there is no exact match based on the address element.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

compiling a list of current offers from one or more proximate vendors into a result list; and

transmitting the result list to the mobile client device for display through a graphical user interface on the mobile client device.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising displaying a location indicator icon in conjunction with the list of current offers to indicate a relative direction of the corresponding vendor to the user.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the present offer is embodied in one of:

an electronic coupon redeemable by the user at the vendor location proximate the user, and an advertising message indicating an offer available to the user by visiting the vendor location proximate the user.

12. A method comprising:

determining a present location of a user through geolocating functions of a mobile client device operated by the user;

analyzing payment a card-based transaction history of the user to identify vendors known to the user;

matching the present location of the user to a proximate location of a known vendor based on the transaction history; and

matching a present offer from the known vendor to the user.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the proximate location of the known vendor is derived by:

determining a name of the vendor from the transaction history

determining one or more locations of the vendor within a geographical location encompassing the present geographic location of the user; and

matching a location of the one or more locations that is closest to the present geographic location of the user.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

looking for an exact word match based on a name of a vendor in the transaction history;

excluding known false positive matches for the exact word match;

generating alias variations for the name of the vendor;

looking for an exact word match based on the alias variations; and

excluding false positive matches for the alias variation match.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the present geographic location of the user is provided by one of:

a geolocating component within the mobile client device and a wireless service provider function that locates a user relative to one or more physical sites maintained by the wireless service provider, the method further comprising;

obtaining the present geographic location of the user in latitude/longitude format;

obtaining the one or more locations of the known vendor in street address format; and

converting the street address format to corresponding latitude/longitude format for direct comparison with the present geographic location of the user.

16. The method of claim 12 further comprising searching for a current promotion offered by the known vendor comprises one of executing a web crawler process to search for offers from a matched vendor, and executing an application program interface program to search for offers from a matched vendor.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

looking for an exact match based on an address element the vendor in the current promotion; and

performing a fuzzy search based on ngrams of the address element if there is no exact match based on the address element.

18. A method comprising:

determining a present location of a user through a geo-enabled client device operated by the user;

identifying one or more vendor locations proximate the user based on the present location of the user;

matching the one or more vendor locations to vendors listed on a transaction list for the user;

searching for one or more electronic offers provided for the one or more vendor locations;

serving the one or more electronic offers to the user through the client device.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the transaction list comprises a list of card-based transactions between the user and at least one of the vendors.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the one or more vendor locations are identified through public directory listings of businesses.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the searching for one or more electronic offers comprises one of executing a web crawler process to search for offers from a matched vendor, and executing an application program interface program to search for offers from a matched vendor.

22. A system for providing a list of current offers from retailers to a user operating a mobile client device, the method comprising:

means for analyzing a transaction history of the user to identify a vendor who has transacted with the user;

means for determining a present geographic location of the user based on a location of the mobile client device;

means for determining a location of the vendor proximate the user based on the transaction history and the present geographic location of the user;

means for searching for a current promotion offered by the vendor; and

means for facilitating the serving of the current promotion to the user through the mobile client device.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the transaction history comprises a card-based payment history through a credit or debit card used by the user.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the card-based payment history is maintained by a payments platform in conjunction with a financial institution managing the credit or debit card.