AU763560B2 - One-time-use payment card and method - Google Patents

Description

-1- P/00/0011 Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT 0 *0 S S .5

ORIGINAL

0 5 Name of Applicant: Actual Inventor: Address for service in Australia: Invention Title: SCHMIDT ELECTRONIC LABORATORIES PTY. LTD.

Gary Schmidt CARTER SMITH BEADLE 2 Railway Parade Camberwell Victoria 3124 Australia One-Time-Use Payment Card And Method Details ofAssociated Provisional Application: Australian Patent Application No. PP3553 filed 15 May 1998 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us 00428768: 1 2 ONE-TIME-USE PAYMENT CARD AND METHOD The present invention relates to a method of payment card processing and also to a payment card in the form of a one-time-use (OTU) payment card. The invention has particular utility in the taxi industry and will be described in relation thereto but it will be readily appreciated that it is not limited to this particular application and is in fact useful in many applications particularly where conventional payment cards such as credit or charge cards are used.

Numerous government and commercial organisations issue payment cards (credit and charge cards) to senior executives in order to facilitate the payment of travel, entertainment and other expenses incurred by executives on behalf of the organisation. Many of the same organisations are reluctant however, to issue such cards to all staff, particularly junior casual or temporary staff, since they are concerned that, in some instances, there may be abuse of the cards. For this reason, the one-time-use payment voucher has been a popular payment tool in both the local and international taxi industries. There are a number of disadvantages to the voucher method of payment as follows: Vouchers are generally distributed by taxi companies or organisations associated with taxi companies. This means that client organisations have an additional creditor to settle with on a regular basis.

20 Such vouchers are generally not linked to the client organisations' travel and entertainment payment card programs. This means that client organisations ***and their staff (or members) do not receive the benefits of their mainstream card loyalty programs when using taxi payment vouchers for the payment of taxi fares.

Mainstream card issuer organisations miss out on the opportunity. to process many taxi fares which are paid for using the vouchers.

o°• otaVouchers are costly to process and require either manual data entry or optical character recognition systems or a combination of both. In addition they coee :g cannot be processed on electronic payment terminals carried by many taxis and ••go 00: *o• 00 004287687 3 other service providers.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a payment card which offers the same utility as a regular payment card such as a credit or charge card but which may only be used for billing a single transaction such as a single taxi fare. In other words, the card of the present invention is a hybrid of the regular plastic payment card and the one-time-use voucher and incorporates the best features of each.

Accordingly, this invention provides a method of recording a payment card transaction by a user of a service provided by a service provider, including the steps of issuing said user with a one-time-use (OTU) payment card, processing the transaction to inform the service provider in respect of a charged transaction amount involving said card, said processing including identifying whether the card has been previously used, and in the event of a previous use ensuring that the first user is not debited multiple times wherein said processing includes maintaining a database record of all said transactions involving said card, and checking each use of the card against the entire database for the purpose of determining said previous use.

In another form of the invention there is provided a one-time-use (OTU) payment card including a card into which an identification number is coded, 20 characterised in that, perforations or other means for facilitating separation of the .:card into two pieces to render it unusable, is provided on the card whereby, after ooooo use, said card may be separated to prevent further use.

S"In a further form of the invention there is provided a method of debiting a payment card user for a service, and crediting a service provider, including the steps of issuing the user with a one-time-use (OTU) payment card from a card issuer, said card having a magnetic stripe onto which an identification number is coded, processing a charge against the OTU card by swiping the card through a s OO*° magnetic stripe card reader of a payment terminal, and checking, at said card co •issuer via a database, to determine whether any previous transactions have been 30 processed against said card and in the event of a previous use ensuring that the °o 0 go 0042676&7 4 first user is not debited multiple times.

In order that the invention may be more readily understood, one particular embodiment will now be described in more detail. The OTU card according to the embodiment is generally the same size and shape as a regular credit or charge card but is made from light cardboard material (the physical properties of charge cards, credit cards, debit cards etc regarding size, shape, thickness and flexibility are covered by International standards). The card of this embodiment features a magnetic stripe onto which an identification number number) and other characters are encoded. A perforation may be placed vertically through the centre of the card to perforate both the card body and the magnetic stripe. In this case the card identification number straddles the perforations on the card so that when the card is broken along the perforations or score line, part of the identification number will be on one part of the card and part on the other.

The method of the embodiment which involves transaction processing to pay a taxi fare is as follows: The card is handed to the taxi driver at the end of the journey.

The driver swipes the card through a magnetic stripe card reader of a payment terminal and a receipt may be generated. The driver retains the card to remove it from circulation, or destroys it by tearing it along the perforations or S 20 otherwise destroys it.

ooooo **The back-end processing of transactions, that is, processing by the card issuer, or other transaction processing organisation involves a central processing computer which maintains a database of all transactions. Records include the card I.D. number. The transaction processing system (TPS) checks each OTU card transaction (TXN) as follows: 1. Checks TXN's card number.

2. Is the TXN card number equal to an OTU card number? If no, exit program. If yes, continue to next step.

Search TXN database for presence of the same card number in any Search TXN database for presence of the same card number in any OC;427687T

TXN.

4. If same OTU card number, is found in the TXN database, continue to next step. If not found, exit program.

Note the details of the previous TXN and report the details of both the original and subsequent TXN's for further action 6. Exit program.

The purpose of the above mentioned process is to determine whether the same card has been used previously. If the card has been used previously the value of the new transaction is debited from the first service provider's account and credited to the second provider's account. The first service provider's account is debited because it is apparent that the card has been used again after being processed on the first occasion. At that time the first service provider (or his agent, the driver) should have de-activated the card by separating the two portions or taking it out of circulation. If the portions had been separated and the card taken out of circulation as required, the card could not have been used on a second or subsequent occasion.

The above procedure also ensures that card holders can only ever be billed with a single transaction such as a taxi fare for each OTU card issued to them.

i Whilst the above describes one particular embodiment of the invention, it 20 will be readily appreciated that variations may be effected without departing S from the scope of the invention.

oo For example, whilst the card is described as having a magnetic stripe, other forms of card or card holder identification which can be detected, may be used. For example, embossed characters may be provided on the body of the card or data may be stored in an integrated circuit (or chip) attached to or integral with the card body. Cards can feature one or more of the abovementioned storage techniques. Some credit and charge cards include embossed characters, a magnetic stripe, and an integrated circuit.

Whilst in one embodiment perforations are used for separating the card 004257687 6 into two or more separate pieces, other means such as groove or score lines may be used in preference to perforations, or alternatively, the card may have no such means and the method may rely solely on the service provider retaining the card after it is used to take it out of circulation. Also, the method may involve the substitution of a transaction acquirer or transaction processor or scheme operator between the card issuer and the card user as, for example, a bank or like credit institution may acquire the transaction from the service provider and pass it on to the payment card issuer.

It should be appreciated that card issuers can supply each of the senior staff in an organisation with a regular plastic payment card, and quantities of OTU cards can also be supplied for distribution on an as needed basis to more junior, casual or temporary staff or even to non-company personnel. For example, a business executive could supply a visiting colleague or associate with a OTU card so that the colleague or associate could take a one-way taxi ride to an airport. Further, a company could provide an OTU card to a visiting customer and thereby pay for the customer's taxi fare on the company account.

A similar situation exists for parcel deliveries where an OTU card could be provided to a taxi driver together with a parcel and the card could be swiped through a payment terminal at the point of origin, or, at the destination. In such S: 20 ways, all the disadvantages described hereinabove in relation to the voucher method of payment will be obviated and a much more stream-lined method of payment will exist.

Claims (10)

1. A method of recording a payment card transaction by a user of a service provided by a service provider, including the steps of issuing said user with a one-time-use (OTU) payment card, processing the transaction to inform the service provider in respect of a charged transaction amount involving said card, said processing including identifying whether the card has been previously used, and in the event of a previous use ensuring that the first user is not debited multiple times wherein said processing includes maintaining a database record of all said transactions involving said card, and checking each use of the card against the entire database for the purpose of determining said previous use.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of said service provider rendering said card unusable after processing said transaction by destroying said card or taking said card out of circulation.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein said OTU card is separable into two or more pieces by means of perforations, a score line or other suitable means whereby after separation an identification number, relevant to said user, is destroyed, characterised in that, said rendering of the card unusable involves the step of said service provider separating said card after initial use.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein said use comprises the service S 20 provider firstly presenting said OTU card to a device which transfers an impression of an identification number of said card, which is embossed onto said card, onto a payment voucher to record said transaction. The method of claim 2 wherein said use comprises firstly presenting said OTU card to an IC card accepting device for electronically 6% 25 recording information from said card. The method of claim 2 wherein said use comprises the service provider firstly swiping said OTU card through a magnetic stripe card reader of a .:payment terminal to electronically record information from said card. •payment terminal to electronically record information from said card. 004267687 8

7. A method of debiting a payment card user for a service, and crediting a service provider, including the steps of issuing the user with a one- time-use (OTU) payment card from a card issuer, said card having a magnetic stripe onto which an identification number is coded, processing a charge against the OTU card by swiping the card through a magnetic stripe card reader of a payment terminal, checking, at said card issuer via a database, to determine whether any previous transactions have been processed against said card and in the event of a previous use ensuring that the user is not debited multiple times.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said method further comprises crediting said service provider for the amount of said transaction and, if a previous transaction has been processed against said card, debiting the previous service provider for an amount equal to the subsequent transaction or some other amount.

9. A one-time-use (OTU) payment card including a card into which an identification number is coded, characterised in that, perforations or other means for facilitating separation of the card into two or more pieces to render it unusable, is provided on the card whereby, after use, said card may be separated to prevent further use. A OTU payment card according to claim 9 wherein said card has a 20 magnetic stripe into which said identification number is coded and said "perforations or other means for separation of the card into two pieces extends S"through said identification number.

11. A OTU payment card according to claim 9 wherein said card has an integrated circuit into which said identification number is stored.

12. A OTU payment card according to claim 9 wherein said card has an ;-identification number embossed onto said card and said perforations or other means for facilitating separation of the card extends through said identification o number. oooo' 004287687 9

13. A OTU payment card according to claims 9 12 made of cardboard material and said means for facilitating separation comprises perforations bisecting said card. Dated: 23 May 2003 FREEHILLS CARTER SMITH BEADLE Patent Attorneys for the Applicant: SCHMIDT ELECTRONIC LABORATORIES PTY. LTD. *o W