Method and system for facilitating electronic funds transactions
First Claim
1. A system for facilitating electronic funds transactions using interoperable payment cards between one or more cardholders and one or more merchants, the system comprising:
- one or more payment cards containing point-of-sale readable account information, configured to be issued to the one or more cardholders within a merchant-issued card program;
wherein said one or more payment cards are associated with one or more respective account numbers that begin with unique International Standards Organization (ISO) identification number, which are assigned for the merchant-issued card program;
wherein said one or more payment cards are configured to be issued by the one or more merchants, participating in said merchant-issued card program as one or more issuing merchants, to the one or more cardholders with privileges to execute purchase transactions interoperably at any of the one or more merchants;
one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals respectively associated with at least some of said one or more merchants, acting as acquiring merchants, and configured to interoperably receive said payment card as a form of payment, without interconnecting their respective proprietary transaction execution systems;
a network-enabled computer having an associated payment card data base within the merchant-issued card program and adapted for communicating through non-proprietary card processing services with the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals;
wherein said payment card data base is configured to be loaded with information for accessing one or more respective valid demand deposit accounts (DDAs) associated with the account numbers before said one or more payment cards will be accepted for payment at the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals; and
programming associated with said computer, wherein said programming configures the computer to;
receive respective transaction information from the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals in response to an attempted purchase transactions by said one or more cardholders using said respective payment cards,execute one or more of said purchase transactions utilizing an automated clearing house (ACH) network in response to respective DDA information retained for said payment cards, in response to determining that the payment cards and purchase transactions are valid,settle one or more of the purchase transactions after execution of said one or more purchase transactions, through a card processing service, from funds retained within one or more DDAs associated with one or more of the respective payment cards associated with the one or more purchase transactions,charge one or more acquiring merchants a fee for executing said one or more purchase transactions, andprovide incentives to the one or more issuing merchants who issued the one or more payment cards involved in respective purchase transactions in response to settling the respective purchase transactions.
6 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system for executing electronic funds transactions using a merchant-issued payment (MIP) card in a merchant-centric system having benefits which include reduced fees to acquiring merchants and optionally remitting a portion of the collected fees, or other incentive, to issuing merchants. The system also preferably provides information sharing on consumer transactions with merchants to facilitate consumer based incentive programs and the like. The system operates over conventional card processing infrastructure and utilizes the ACH network, or equivalent, to settle the transaction from a consumer checking account, or a merchant account in the case of a prepaid MIP card. Using the system, merchants may elect to qualify customers based on their own criterion. Embodiments are described for prepaid, fixed value, programmable, and refillable, forms of merchant-issued payment cards.
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Citations
43 Claims
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1. A system for facilitating electronic funds transactions using interoperable payment cards between one or more cardholders and one or more merchants, the system comprising:
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one or more payment cards containing point-of-sale readable account information, configured to be issued to the one or more cardholders within a merchant-issued card program; wherein said one or more payment cards are associated with one or more respective account numbers that begin with unique International Standards Organization (ISO) identification number, which are assigned for the merchant-issued card program; wherein said one or more payment cards are configured to be issued by the one or more merchants, participating in said merchant-issued card program as one or more issuing merchants, to the one or more cardholders with privileges to execute purchase transactions interoperably at any of the one or more merchants; one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals respectively associated with at least some of said one or more merchants, acting as acquiring merchants, and configured to interoperably receive said payment card as a form of payment, without interconnecting their respective proprietary transaction execution systems; a network-enabled computer having an associated payment card data base within the merchant-issued card program and adapted for communicating through non-proprietary card processing services with the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals; wherein said payment card data base is configured to be loaded with information for accessing one or more respective valid demand deposit accounts (DDAs) associated with the account numbers before said one or more payment cards will be accepted for payment at the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals; and programming associated with said computer, wherein said programming configures the computer to; receive respective transaction information from the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals in response to an attempted purchase transactions by said one or more cardholders using said respective payment cards, execute one or more of said purchase transactions utilizing an automated clearing house (ACH) network in response to respective DDA information retained for said payment cards, in response to determining that the payment cards and purchase transactions are valid, settle one or more of the purchase transactions after execution of said one or more purchase transactions, through a card processing service, from funds retained within one or more DDAs associated with one or more of the respective payment cards associated with the one or more purchase transactions, charge one or more acquiring merchants a fee for executing said one or more purchase transactions, and provide incentives to the one or more issuing merchants who issued the one or more payment cards involved in respective purchase transactions in response to settling the respective purchase transactions. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A system for facilitating electronic funds transactions using interoperable payment cards between one or more cardholders and one or more merchants, the system comprising:
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one or more payment cards containing point-of-sale readable account information, configured to be issued to the one or more cardholders within a merchant-issued card program; wherein said one or more payment cards are associated with one or more respective account numbers that begin with unique International Standards Organization (ISO) identification number, which are assigned for the merchant-issued card program; wherein said one or more payment cards are configured to be issued by the one or more merchants, participating in said merchant-issued card program as one or more issuing merchants, to the one or more cardholders with privileges to execute purchase transactions interoperably at any of the one or more merchants; one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals respectively associated with at least some of said one or more merchants, acting as acquiring merchants, and configured to interoperably receive said payment card as a form of payment, without interconnecting their respective proprietary transaction execution systems; a network-enabled computer having an associated payment card data base within the merchant-issued card program and adapted for communicating through non-proprietary card processing services with the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals; wherein said payment card data base is configured to be loaded with information for accessing one or more respective valid demand deposit accounts (DDAs) associated with the account numbers before said one or more payment cards will be accepted for payment at the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals; and programming associated with said computer, wherein said programming configures the computer to; receive respective transaction information from the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals in response to an attempted purchase transactions by said one or more cardholders using said respective payment cards, execute one or more of said purchase transactions utilizing an automated clearing house (ACH) network in response to respective DDA information retained for said payment cards, in response to determining that the payment cards and purchase transactions are valid, settle one or more of the purchase transactions after execution of said one or more purchase transactions, through a card processing service, from funds retained within one or more DDAs associated with one or more of the respective payment cards associated with the one or more purchase transactions, and charge one or more acquiring merchants a fee for executing said one or more purchase transactions. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A system for facilitating electronic funds transactions using interoperable payment cards between one or more cardholders and one or more merchants, the system comprising:
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one or more payment cards containing point-of-sale readable account information, configured to be issued to the one or more cardholders within a merchant-issued card program; wherein said one or more payment cards are associated with one or more respective account numbers that begin with unique International Standards Organization (ISO) identification number, which are assigned for the merchant-issued card program; wherein said one or more payment cards are configured to be issued by the one or more merchants, participating in said merchant-issued card program as one or more issuing merchants, to the one or more cardholders with privileges to execute purchase transactions interoperably at any of the one or more merchants acting as acquiring merchants; and a network-enabled computer having an associated payment card data base within the merchant-issued card program and adapted for communication through card processing services with one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals to receive transaction information from the one or more point-of-sale transaction terminals, the network-enabled computer being further configured to;
execute a transaction using an automated clearing house (ACH) network in response to demand deposit account (DDA) information previously loaded into said payment card data base, to settle the transaction from funds from a DDA account associated with a payment card used in said transaction, and to charge an acquiring merchant a fee for executing said transaction. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43)
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Specification