CA2751512A1

CA2751512A1 - My card

Info

Publication number: CA2751512A1
Application number: CA2751512A
Authority: CA
Inventors: Anthony E. Mackay
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2011-09-01
Filing date: 2011-09-01
Publication date: 2013-03-01

Abstract

A retractable smart card as part of new Smart Phone designs will allow customers to pay securely at POS using their phone. The chipped card is encoded with a unique number in the cell provider's system which is linked with the customers various accounts (debit, credit, loyalty etc). Customer can choose account for payment using the interface on the phone and then insert the card in the POS. More secure then contactless cards (RFID etc), the PIN for this card is a finger or thumb print scan using the screen (or a scanner on side/back of unit) while the card is inserted in the POS, standard alpha-numerical PINS are optional.
The card is only visible when needed and is retractable into the phone via virtual buttons on the phones interface.

Description

Description This design is much more secure then current contactless payment options since those frequencies can be picked up remotely by 3rd parties, this is avoided due to the contact with the POS and Smart Phone Card, PIN is entered via traditional alpha/numeric or new finger/thumb scanner using the phone screen or additional scanner on side or back of unit. The card is encoded with a number and encryption unique to the cell provider, this unique number in the providers system can then be linked with multiple banks, credit/debit cards, gift/loyalty cards and can also be used as a hotel room card. For example when a customer is on route to a hotel they could use an advanced check in app with gives their smart phone card access to the room previously reserved.
Gift cards could now be purchased virtually and loaded onto the customers account (ie-Future Shop, Best Buy etc) and could be redeemed at the store POS simply by choosing the specific gift card from the list of accounts linked with the card using the phone UI (ie-select Future Shop Gift card, insert card in POS and have finger scanned as PIN to complete payment.) Cell provider may be required to develop drives for POS systems to accept this new phone card.
This design will reduce/remove the data entry step when customers are enrolling in 3rd party loyalty programs, instead of filling out long forms (online or paper based) they can simply choose to enrol using the 3rd parties app, clicking the "Enrol" button will auto populate the 3rd party merchants database with their basic contact info (name, email, address etc), the specific type of data used to auto populate these forms can be defined in advance for added security.
This new design will greatly reduce the amount of plastic cards (gift, bank etc) going to land fills every year since this one Phone Card will be linked to multiple accounts.
Each Cell provider could design the chip on the card to appear like their company logo (Apple, Blackberry etc). This design would be available for "left" and "right"
handed users, phone models could be designed to have the card extract from any side of the phone.

Claims

Claims The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:

A smart phone is designed to allow for a retractable card, the card is operated with a single button on the side of the phone or a virtual button in the phones UI.
The smart card is equipped with both a mag swipe and smart chip technology.

If a user has previously reserved a hotel room they can use this card to unlock their hotel room instead of waiting in a line at front desk to receive a hotel key card, this would be done using an app. As part of the self check-in the App would encrypt and pass the number encoded on the mag swipe of the card to Hotel database, since the hotel room locks are connected directly to hotel DB the card will no unlock the specific room, once the reservation has expired the lock is reprogrammed per current Hotel process and the card will no longer open the door.

The card can also be used as a method of payment at a store level Point of Sale similar to current Debit, Credit, Gift/Loyalty cards. The phone carrier would need to integrate with major banks and credit cards to complete this functionality.
The would be more secure then current NFC technologies being tested in the Google Wallet since this is a hard connection with the card and POS, NFC is not as secure since the user is transmitting sensitive bank account details to the POS wirelessly and its possible for that signal to be picked up by a 3rd party.

The PIN is no longer required by Point Of Sale terminal however a PIN must be entered into the phone before the transaction can be completed. This PIN can be alpha/numeric or it can be a finger or thumb print scan directly on the screen of the phone or using a sensor on the side of the phone.
This would speed up payment processing time since the users thumb is already on the screen when the card is inserted into the POS and it scans automatically, also eliminates PIN entry error delays. A phone can be setup to accept multiple finger prints if needs (husband, wife, chid etc).

The Phone manufacture can also use the card as an Employee expense account, a business bank account could be setup and linked to the phone. Online reporting features available to employers or parents who may use this feature to monitor children's spending.