Payment system and methods

• US 9,489,673 B2
• Filed: 04/10/2015
• Issued: 11/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/11/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Payment Card Association
• Original Assignee: National Payment Card Association
• Inventors: Randazza, Joseph R., Portal, Danilo
• Primary Examiner(s): Labaze, Edwyn
• Application Number:
  US14/683,180
• Publication Number:
  US 20150278815A1
• Time in Patent Office: 578 Days
• Field of Search: 235/379, 235/375, 235/487, 235/472.01, 705 16- 17, 705/39, 705/41, 705/44
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/02 involving a neutral party, e.g. certification authority, notary or trusted third party [TTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/023 the neutral party being a clearing house
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/202 Interconnection or interaction of plural electronic cash registers [ECR] or to host computer, e.g. network details, transfer of information from host to ECR or from ECR to ECR
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/204 comprising interface for record bearing medium or carrier for electronic funds transfer or payment credit
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/26 Debit schemes, e.g. "pay now"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3226 Use of secure elements separate from M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/385 using an alias or single-use codes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4012 Verifying personal identification numbers [PIN]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4014 Identity check for transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0617 Representative agent
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/0009 Details of the software in the checkout register, electronic cash register [ECR] or point of sale terminal [POS]
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/14 Systems including one or more distant stations co-operating with a central processing unit data transmission in general H04L; telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station H04Q9/00

Abstract

Disclosed are payment system and methods in which a shopper pays with a temporary payment token that is a number (such as a 7-digit number that appeared on the screen of the shopper'"'"'s mobile phone) at a POS device, without the shopper needing have his own mag-stripe card.

Claims

1. A payment system, comprising:

a consumer-side mobile device;

a pin pad;

a point-of-sale (POS) device connected to the pin pad;

a processor that performs a step of receiving incoming data from a consumer mobile device that is an email address and a PIN entered by the consumer;

a temporary token generator that performs a step of generating a temporary token consisting of characters each of which is a button on the pin pad;

a mobile application server that performs a step of transmitting the temporary token to the consumer-side mobile device.

2. The payment system of claim 1, wherein the consumer-side mobile device at no time is connected to, or in electronic communication with, the POS device.

3. The payment system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of consumer-side mobile devices.

4. The payment system of claim 1, comprising a plurality of POS devices.

5. The payment system of claim 1, wherein the temporary token generator performs a step of generating a temporary token after having received the email address and the PIN sent by the consumer mobile device.

6. The payment system of claim 5, wherein the consumer-side communications system sends the temporary token to a screen of the consumer mobile device to be viewed by the consumer.

7. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the temporary token is a 7-digit number displayed on-screen of the consumer mobile device.

8. The payment system of claim 1, wherein the POS device consists of conventional POS hardware.

9. A payment method, comprising:

operating a mobile application server that communicates with at least one consumer mobile device;

operating a financial switch that communicates with at least one POS device;

receiving, performed by the mobile application server, an email address and a PIN that are received after having been entered into a consumer-side mobile device;

providing, performed by the mobile application server, a temporary token that is a multi-digit number displayed on the consumer mobile device;

wherein the providing of the temporary token is performed after receiving the email address and the PIN;

identifying a customer associated with the multi-digit number at the time of the POS transaction and settling a payment transaction for the identified customer via an ACH system selected from the group consisting of the Federal Reserve ACH system and the Electronic Payment Network (EPN) system.

10. The payment method of claim 9, wherein the temporary token is a 7-digit number.

11. The payment method of claim 9, further comprising a step performed by a computer of treating a temporary payment token as expired after a predetermined period of time.

12. The payment method of claim 9, performed without any physical card having been issued to a consumer.

13. The payment method of claim 9, performed without the consumer carrying any physical card.

14. The payment method of claim 9, wherein the POS device is never connected to, or in electronic communication with, the consumer mobile device.

15. The payment method of claim 14, further comprising changing a token status from a Live state or a Pending Transaction state back to an Available State.

16. The payment method of claim 9, further comprising changing a token status from a Live state to a Pending Transaction state.

17. The method of claim 9, practiced wherein the at least one POS device used in the method steps consists of conventional POS hardware.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising, the conventional POS hardware receiving the temporary token via a pinpad, wherein a transaction in which the temporary token is entered appears to an existing retail POS system as a standard debit transaction as that of another shopper in line with an ATM card who enters a PIN into the same conventional POS hardware,

and wherein when the temporary token has been entered via the pinpad, an existing payment gateway is used, without change to retailer infrastructure.

19. An authentication method for a payment system, comprising:

authenticating, performed by a computer, based on (1) an email address received by the computer from a consumer mobile device;

(2) a PIN received, by the computer, from the consumer mobile device; and

(3) a token received from a POS device into which the token was entered.

20. The authentication method of claim 19, comprising processing the received email address against a database of email addresses of registered consumer users and/or

processing the received PIN against a database of PINs issued to registered consumer users.

21. The authentication method of claim 19, wherein the consumer mobile device is never connected to, or in communication with, the POS device.

22. The method of claim 19, practiced wherein the POS device used in the method step consists of conventional POS hardware.