Smart payment instrument selection

• US 8,930,270 B2
• Filed: 07/30/2002
• Issued: 01/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AOL Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Roskind, James
• Primary Examiner(s): Niquette, Robert R
• Assistant Examiner(s): LIU, CHIA-YI
• Application Number:
  US10/209,559
• Publication Number:
  US 20040024703A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,543 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705 35- 45
• US Class Current: 705/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/02 involving a neutral party, e.g. certification authority, notary or trusted third party [TTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/227 characterised in that multiple accounts are available, e.g. to the payer
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/24 Credit schemes, i.e. "pay after"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/341 Active cards, i.e. cards including their own processing means, e.g. including an IC or chip
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/357 Cards having a plurality of specified features
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/367 involving electronic purses or money safes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0222 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1008 Active credit-cards provided with means to personalise their use, e.g. with PIN-introduction/comparison system

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided for constructing and using a smart wallet with automatic selection when making a purchase in an online environment. In one embodiment of the invention, the wallet service first finds the intersection of acceptable instruments between a merchant and a user. The wallet service then intelligently selects, or at least ranks in order, the payment instruments based on value to the customer. The ranking can take into account: a) cash back rates; b) mileage rates for the specific potential purchase; and c) temporal discounts such as shipping or coupon discounts for the specific product type; etc. The system preferably presumes that a smart wallet is given information about a transaction, and has collected information about the payment instruments.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for automatically selecting a payment instrument in an online environment, comprising the steps of:

notifying, by a user'"'"'s Web browser, a merchant application of the user'"'"'s desire to make a purchase transaction for an offered product or service, said merchant application comprising a merchant'"'"'s Web page;

responsive to said notifying said merchant application, said merchant application sending information of said purchase transaction to a corresponding smart wallet application, said smart wallet application being capable of electronically receiving discount information and having a repository of stored information about one or more payment instruments, said stored information comprising number of and types of payment instruments of the user, discount and incentive information from manufacturers, discount and incentive information from financial instrument companies, types of payment instruments accepted by said merchant, and a predetermined priority with which to rank suggested payment instruments;

responsive to receiving said purchase transaction information from said merchant application and using said stored information, said smart wallet application automatically processing said purchase transaction information to determine, rank based on said predetermined priority, and suggest at least one payment instrument from said one or more payment instruments, wherein said suggested at least one payment instrument provides a best value to said user;

selecting a payment instrument from said suggested at least one payment instrument; and

responsive to a determination that only the selected payment instrument provides a discount to said user, said smart wallet application suggesting bundling multiple purchases and suggesting charging said bundled multiple purchases to said selected payment instrument.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said sent information from said merchant application further comprises payment instruments acceptable by said merchant application.

3. The method of claim 2, said processing step further comprising the step of:

said smart wallet finding an intersection of said stored one or more payment instruments and said payment instruments acceptable by said merchant application.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

said smart wallet application sending said selected payment instrument information to said merchant application for further processing.

5. The method of claim 1,further comprising the step of:

said smart wallet application automatically suggesting and selecting said payment instrument based on predetermined criteria.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

said smart wallet application contacting a bank with said selected payment instrument.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

said merchant application contacting a bank with said selected payment instrument.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said sent selected payment instrument information is encoded.

9. The method of claim 1,further comprising the step of:

providing discount information to said smart wallet application on an on-going basis for storing and tracking.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said providing discount information step further comprises any of the steps of, or any combination of steps of, but by no means limited to the steps of:

sending said discount information by electronic means; and

data processors inputting said discount information.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

using said smart wallet application as a discount tracker to review available discounts.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

providing for multiple financial instrument selections for a single purchase to obtain multiple discounts.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

said smart wallet application making purchasing needs suggestions based on stored information.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said discount information comprises any of:

temporal discounts;

cash back rates; and

mileage rates.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein said payment instrument is any of a credit card and a debit card.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the smart wallet application is executed by at least one computer processor.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the steps are performed by at least one computer processor.

16. A computer-implemented method for automatically selecting a payment instrument in an online environment, comprising the steps of:

notifying, by a user'"'"'s Web browser, a merchant application of the user'"'"'s desire to make a purchase transaction for an offered product or service, said merchant application comprising a merchant'"'"'s Web page;

responsive to said notifying said merchant application, said merchant application sending information of said purchase transaction to a corresponding smart wallet application, said smart wallet application being capable of electronically receiving discount information and having a repository of stored information about one or more payment instruments, said stored information comprising number of and types of payment instruments of the user, types of payment instruments accepted by said merchant, and a predetermined priority with which to rank possible suggested payment instruments;

responsive to receiving said purchase transaction information from said merchant application and using said stored information, said smart wallet application automatically processing said purchase transaction information to determine, rank based on said predetermined priority, and suggest at least one payment instrument at the time of purchase from said one or more payment instruments, wherein said suggested at least one payment instrument provides a best value to said user;

automatically selecting a payment instrument from said suggested at least one payment instrument at the time of purchase; and

responsive to a determination that only the selected payment instrument provides a discount to said user, said smart wallet application suggesting bundling multiple purchases and suggesting charging said bundled multiple purchases to said selected payment instrument.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the smart wallet application is executed by at least one computer processor.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein each of the steps are performed by at least one computer processor.

17. A system for automatically selecting a payment instrument in an online environment, comprising:

a first computer processor executing a Web browser a application configured for notifying a merchant application of a desire to make a purchase transaction for an offered product or service, said merchant application comprising a merchant'"'"'s Web page application;

a second computer processor executing the Web page application configured for, responsive to said notifying said merchant application, sending information of said purchase transaction to a corresponding smart wallet application, said smart wallet application being capable of electronically receiving discount information and having a repository of stored information about one or more payment instruments, said stored information comprising number of and types of payment instruments of a user, types of payment instruments accepted by said merchant, and a predetermined priority with which to rank possible suggested payment instruments, wherein, responsive to receiving said purchase transaction information from said merchant application and using said stored information, said smart wallet application;

automatically processes said purchase transaction information to determine, rank based on said predetermined priority, and suggest at least one payment instrument from said one or more payment instruments, said suggested at least one payment instrument providing a best value to said user;

automatically selects at least one payment instrument from said suggested at least one payment instrument; and

suggests bundling multiple purchases and suggests charging said bundled multiple purchases to a single payment instrument, responsive to a determination that only said selected payment instrument provides a discount to said user.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein the smart wallet application is executed by at least one computer processor.