GB2463064A - Electronic Payment System - Google Patents

Abstract

A method of processing a standards compliant payment system message to generate an electronic voucher via a portable electronic device. A payment request is made at a standards compliant POS terminal (105). The terminal forms a first concatenated string including (106) a card identifier, merchant identifier and amount, which first string is sent to a transaction processor as a message, wherein the first string is then sent to an acquirer for authorisation as a second message, which string is then amended to form a second string depending on whether the transaction has been accepted or declined. The first or second string is checked (107) to determine if the checked string contains a card identifier and a user identifier such that if a match is found, a further message is generated comprising the user identifier, which further message is transmitted for further validation (108) and in the event of further validation (109), a voucher (110) is transmitted to a user. The method enables a voucher to be sent to a user at the time of making a transaction so that the delivery of the voucher is associated with the transaction.

Description

Payment Systems The invention relates to a method of processing a payment system message to generate an electronic voucher; Such vouchers in particular, but not exclusively, may be distributed via portable electronic devices, such as mobile telephones..

Companies issuing payment cards such as retailer or product specific loyalty cards and indeed credit cards or debit cards have high fixed upfront costs associated with issuing the credit card or debit card. These companies have traditionally used a series of rewards or offers to their customers to try to persuade customers to use the particular company's card, Standard mailshot techniques have proven to be uneconomic as the response rate is often only 2% or lower. Offering retrospective incentives such as additional credit to a cardholder's account in the form of either specific rewards or cash value reduction of statement balance have become less effective over time as they rely on the cardholders noticing these incentives in order to have the desired motivation effect. They are also expensive to administer as the issuer needs to apply these rewards across all qualifying cards regardless of whether eligibility for the reward is the result of specifically influenced cardholder behaviour There therefore exists a need for a way of distributing rewards to customers that has lower costs than the known paper based systems Known solutions of distributing vouchers electronically to customers have a number of technical limitations. GB2432702 discloses one such method, which is suitable for distributing and authorising the redemption of vouchers but only replicates the mailshot technique of distribution. Known acquiring or host systems for processing card payments cannot be adapted easily to introduce new functionality as any changes to the software need to be validated in the context of overall financial system, where development and regression-testing may takes several years, large sums of money and may need to be approved by the regulatory authorities.

The invention therefore seeks to provide a method of distributing rewards to customers which relates the reward to a transaction in particular where a cardholder has been specifically encouraged to engage in the transaction.

According to the invention there is provided a method of processing a standards compliant payment message comprising the steps of making a payment request at a standards compliant POS terminal, which terminal forms a concatenated string including a card identifier, merchant identifier and amount, which string is passed to a transaction processor, wherein the string is then passed to an acquirer for authorisation, which string is then amended depending on whether the transaction has been accepted or declined, wherein either the first or second string is checked to determine if the string contains a card identifier with a corresponding user identifier such that if a match is found, a further third message is generated comprising the user identifier, which further message is transmitted for further validation and in the event of further validation, a further fourth message is transmitted to a user.

In a common implementation of a payments system, the choice of which transaction processor is used on a particular transaction is determined by the configuration of the card payment device to recognise part or all of the card number. One advantage of the system of Claim 1 is that it is not tied to a particular transaction processor or even merchant acquirer. The result of this is that operation of the method is facilitated in markets where more than one banking system is in operation such as the United Kingdom or United States of America and also in international markets.

Additionally, the credit card industry mandates for understandable security reasons the use of PCI-DSS standards, which require that all companies that have access to credit card numbers in the transaction process are registered and meet the onerous regulatory standards of financial services companies. The method of the invention enables the issuer of the electronic voucher to avoid the necessity to be PCI-DSS compliant as the cardholders number is never made available to them.

Preferably, the user identifier consists of a mobile telephone number or IP address of a portable electronic device and the third message above consists of the said mobile telephone number, retailer identifier, transaction value, time and date. Preferably, the further fourth message comprises an electronic voucher. Preferably, the fourth message is transmitted by SMS to the mobile telephone number of the user.

The invention advantageously permits an electronic voucher, which can be redeemed for goods and services to be sent more or less instantaneously to a user's mobile telephone after a transaction with a merchant has been made by effectively filtering the standards compliant payment message. This enables the merchant, card-issuer or both to link the voucher with the transaction and to function as a reward with a high probability of redemption. The issuing of the voucher is perfonned electronically and so has a very low marginal cost making it particularly suitable for low margin or low volume promotional activities. It is also only made available to specific cardholders for qualifying transactions reducing cost of operations.

The solution according to the invention obviates the inherent problems in the known solutions by using existing point of sale equipment to validate individual card transactions and assess if they qualify for rewards of some description. The use of existing equipment and standard processes developed by card payment schemes not only reduces the cost of adopting the voucher scheme for the retailer but as the existing equipment is familiar and trusted, there is no need for further retailer training as staff will follow normal procedures for taking card payments.

Exemplary embodiments of the invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the examples and the drawing, in which: Figure 1 shows a flow diagram of the method of the invention.

The electronic funds transfer network is one of the most widely adopted point of sale equipment and is now found in even most small retail stores and businesses. The electronic funds transfer network operates in compliance with international standards, specifically ISO/IEC 7812-1:2000 and ANSI X4.13 and these standards apply to both standalone payment terminals and also integrated electronic point of sale equipment, in which the payment terminal is integrated with a cash register. According to these standards any payment card will be given a sixteen digit number, the first six digits of which identify the issuer and product type with the next nine digits forming the customer or card identifier and the final digit being a check digit. This system applies to pre-paid cards such as those used for low value transactions in coffee shops as well as to the more established credit and debit card system.

In use, when a customer or retailer wishes to validate a transaction request, the card is read either via the magnetic strip or via the chip. The POS terminal generates a concatenated string including a card identifier corresponding to the card number, a merchant identifier and also a string corresponding to the sum for which validation has been requested. The string also includes further parameters including time and date of request, the transaction type and an identifier for the particular terminal. The POS then calls a transaction processor or a merchant acquirer, which checks that the data is in the correct format and the acquirer then passes the request to the scheme owner who then forwards the transaction to a card issuer. The card issuer then either authorises or refuses the requested charge back to the acquirer/transaction processor, which then transmits the resultant authorisation or refusal to the POS terminal.

In a first example relating to a promotion for a coffee shop, in step 101 the card holder registers his mobile telephone number and his coffee shop payment card with the sponsoring company's website. The card in this case can be the coffee shop's own pre-paid card such as a Starbucks CardTM. The sponsor then supplies the mobile telephone number and payment card number to a transaction acquiring system in step 102, and the mobile telephone number is also provided to a voucher service provider in step 103. The service provider then sends an SMS to the user informing him or her of a specific offer for one specific retailer in step 104.

In step 105, the card holder makes a relevant purchase at the specific retailer and pays with the payment card previously registered. The EFTPOS terminal then forms a standards compliant message and sends the concatenated string to a transaction acquiring system such as in step 106. The EFTPOS terminal will generally be programmed to recognise ranges of card numbers, typically using the first 6-digits of the card number in accordance with payment industry convention so that the payment message is sent to the appropriate transaction acquiring system. The concatenated string will comprise a terminal identifier, a merchant identifier, a message type identifier and a card identifier or number. These identifiers can be numeric or alphanumeric.

In step 107, if the payment transaction is approved, the transaction acquiring system checks that the card holder may be eligible for a voucher by checking the card number in a look-up table having the card numbers and mobile telephone numbers of registered customers. If the card holder is eligible for a voucher, the transaction processor sends a message comprising the mobile telephone number, transaction amount, date and merchant identifier to the voucher service provider.

In step 108, the voucher service provider receives the mobile number, transaction amount, date and merchant identifier from the transaction processor and in step 109 determines if the mobile number is eligible for a voucher against criteria such as time, date, merchant and value of transaction or any combination of these criteria and if the card holder is eligible sends an electronic voucher, for example for �1.00 off next purchase or a free muffin at a given branch of a retailer which may or may not be the same retailer where the transaction in step 104 has taken place, via SMS to the card holder's mobile telephone number in step 110. The electronic voucher can consist of a number of up to thirteen-digits and will arrive shortly after the original transaction has been completed.

To redeem the voucher in step Ill, the card holder presents goods related to the voucher offer and his SMS voucher number to the cashier in the relevant retailer. The retailer can enter a voucher number associated with the voucher service provider through their standard EFTPOS terminal, and when prompted keys in the voucher code and hits return in step 112. The EFTPOS terminal then forms the concatenated string required by the voucher service providers validation check in the conventional maimer and in this case the acquirer regards the voucher code to be representative of a monetary sum.

The EFTPOS terminal then seeks authorisation from the voucher service provider.

The ETFPOS terminal recognises from the 6-digit number prefix referred to above that the request relates to an electronic voucher. The six-digit prefix may be pre-programmed to a function key or other menu item in the EFTPOS device when the device then waits for the voucher number to be keyed or manually keyed and preceding the voucher number. The voucher number is then authenticated in step 114.

if the voucher number is valid, then the issuer authorises a payment corresponding to the voucher value, in this case �1 and then cancels the vouchers should the voucher be valid only for a single use although vouchers may have an infinite use as desired by the issuer and implemented by the voucher service provider. If the voucher number is invalid, then the voucher service provider returns a standard refusal message. In the case of an authorised payment, the voucher service provider then returns either directly to the EFTPOS or via a transactions acquiring system the voucher authorisation to EFTPOS for the sum of �1 together with a redemption reference code. This is then printed by the EFTPOS terminal in step 114 to provide a paper trail for the retailer and issuer in the same manner as for a credit card and the retailer will be reimbursed through the same mechanisms as for credit card payments. In a further embodiment, the POS terminal may electronically process the authorisation message together with the specific details of the incentive obviating the need to print the voucher.

In a further refinement of the invention, it would be possible to filter the transaction at the voucher service provider according to the particular circumstances of the payment transaction For example IF value is <fL50 00 AND date is between 01 -APR-08 and 30-May-08 AND Retailer = Large Multiple THEN send OfferCodel to Mobile Number subject to the rules of OfferCodel (e g only one voucher per phone) Although the transaction provider has been descnbed as using a table look up in step 107, it would be possible to use other database and directory techniques