KR20030083953A - Methods for Immediately Making up account Using Gift Certificate on Credit Card Terminal and Apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for a payment using a gift certificate in a credit card terminal promptly and a device thereof are provided to transfer an amount of money corresponded to a par value of a gift certificate from a parent account to a child account promptly using payment information inputted based on the gift certificate in a credit card terminal based on a credit card payment system. CONSTITUTION: Payment information transmitted from a terminal is received through a network interface of a server computer(S211). The payment information is interpreted, and information necessary for a process is extracted(S212). A gift certificate database is searched in accordance with an identification number of a gift certificate. It is checked whether a gift certificate inputted in the server computer is a valid gift certificate(S213). If the gift certificate inputted in the server computer is a valid gift certificate, a parent account database is searched using a classification number of payment information, and a parent account of an issuing company corresponded to the classification number is extracted(S214). A child account database is searched using a position number of the terminal, and a child account of a member store corresponded to the position number is extracted(S215). A transfer of a par value from the parent account to the child account is requested to a bank computer promptly(S216). If the transfer is completed(S217), payment approval information is created based on a transfer result message inputted from the bank computer, transmitted to the terminal, and recorded in an approval information database(S218,S219).

Description

Method and Immediately Making up account Using Gift Certificate on Credit Card Terminal and Apparatus therefor}

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for making an immediate payment with a gift certificate at a credit card terminal, and more particularly, to immediately pay an amount corresponding to the face value of a gift certificate in making a payment at a credit card terminal with a gift certificate. It relates to a payment method and a device thereof.

Generally, a gift voucher is a bearer securities that the issuer promises to provide to the holder of the gift voucher, in advance, in exchange for the goods or services corresponding to the face value listed on the voucher's face, by the issuer or a third party. As a result, products and services sold in general offline stores are issued for the purpose.

These days, however, the change of economic structure, the improvement of consumption level, the change of consumption form, and the development of information and communication, especially the Internet, necessitate new vouchers that can replace the existing vouchers. Gift vouchers in the form of cards are issued and distributed, but they are issued as vouchers that can only be used in offline stores.

In addition, with the development of the Internet, prepaid cards that can be used as an electronic payment method in Internet shopping malls are issued and distributed (the related arts related thereto are Korean Patent Application Nos. 2001-32658 and 2000-75950). Such as the certificate of gift voucher, which is an essential requirement for a gift voucher that is a bearer securities, and the stamp stamp attached under the Stamp Tax Act. The attribute of the separate gift certificate is ignored and is only used as an electronic payment method for self-consumption or as an electronic payment method for self-consumption on the Internet, in place of the circulation of cash within the limit of cash deposited in the account.

In addition, according to the conventional method for operating a gift certificate there is a problem that the distribution range of the gift certificate is limited. For example, department stores, gasoline and shoe store vouchers can only be used at the issuers and very few affiliated stores, or for books, cultural vouchers, CMS coupons, etc., only at hundreds to thousands of partners. In addition, there have been restrictions on payment methods for gift certificates and coupons.

The present invention was devised to solve the above problems, and based on the credit card payment system, the amount of money corresponding to the face value of the gift certificate is transferred from the mother account to the own account with the payment information input based on the gift certificate from the credit card terminal. It is intended to provide the instant invention for instant transfer.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a present invention that can prevent damage by illegal methods such as unauthorized copying of the gift certificate by checking whether the gift certificate is a valid gift certificate when the information on the gift certificate is input from the credit card terminal. .

The following drawings attached to this specification are illustrative of preferred embodiments of the present invention, and together with the detailed description of the invention to serve to further understand the technical spirit of the present invention, the present invention is a matter described in such drawings It should not be construed as limited to

1 schematically shows a computer system for payment of a credit card according to the present invention.

2 shows a functional configuration of a server computer.

Figure 3 shows a database used in the present invention as a table.

4 illustrates a process of inputting payment information based on a gift certificate in a credit card terminal.

5 illustrates another example of FIG. 4.

6 shows a process of processing payment information in a server computer.

* Brief description of the major symbols in the drawings *

100: credit card terminal 200: VAN computer 300: server computer

400: Banker Computer

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to a method for making a payment with a gift certificate input from a credit card terminal in a credit card payment system including a server computer. Inputting payment information including a gift certificate identifier, a payment identifier and a transfer identifier, and a payment amount into the server computer; Extracting a mother account of the gift certificate based on the payment information; Extracting a magnetic account to which the payment amount is transferred based on the payment information; Executing a transfer of an account from the mother account to the magnetic account based on the payment amount; And generating the approval information according to the transfer result and transmitting it to the terminal.

In addition, in order to implement the above method, the present invention provides a credit card payment system comprising a terminal for inquiring a credit card, comprising: a storage device for processing a purchase with a gift certificate input from the terminal; And a processing device connected with the storage device, wherein the storage device stores a program for controlling the processing device, wherein the processing device includes: a gift certificate identifier, a payment identifier, and a transfer identifier based on the gift certificate in the terminal; Receiving payment information including a payment amount, extracting a mother account of the gift certificate based on the payment information, extracting a magnetic account to which the payment amount is transferred based on the payment information, and extracting from the mother account An account is executed on the basis of the payment amount to the account, and is operated by a program that generates and transmits authorization information to the terminal according to the result of the transfer.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Prior to this, terms or words used in the specification and claims should not be construed as having a conventional or dictionary meaning, and the inventors should properly explain the concept of terms in order to best explain their own invention. Based on the principle that can be defined, it should be interpreted as meaning and concept corresponding to the technical idea of the present invention.

Therefore, the embodiments described in the specification and the drawings shown in the drawings are only the most preferred embodiment of the present invention and do not represent all of the technical idea of the present invention, various modifications that can be replaced at the time of the present application It should be understood that there may be equivalents and variations.

As used herein, a "parent account" is a bank account deposited by the amount of a gift certificate issued in accordance with the issuance of a gift certificate. In addition, the 'self account' is a payment account of each affiliated store in which the terminal 100 is provided.

An apparatus applied to the present invention is described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. First, FIG. 1 schematically shows a computer system for payment of a credit card.

As shown in FIG. 1, the server computer 300 is connected to the credit card terminal 100 provided at each affiliated store through the computer 200 of the VAN. In addition, it is connected to the bank company computer 400 to request a bank transfer on the basis of the face value of the gift certificate.

The credit card terminal 100 preferably further includes a reader unit 113 for recognizing a barcode. Through the barcode 515 printed on the gift certificate, the credit card terminal 100 recognizes the amount, identification number and classification number of the gift certificate. Here, the classification number is a code indicating a company that issues a gift certificate. The mother account is tracked in the server computer 300 through this classification number. The identification number is a code assigned to distinguish the gift certificate according to the gift certificate. Through this identification number, the server computer 300 can confirm whether this gift certificate is a valid gift certificate.

The payment information input from the credit card terminal 100 is input to the server computer 300 through the computer 200 of the VAN, where the payment information is interpreted and the bank company computer 400 requests the immediate transfer of the payment amount. do.

Here, the computer 200 of the value added network (VAN) refers to a value-added communication network, which provides information required by a user based on an existing data communication network to provide additional value of the communication network. As a kind, it is provided by Korea Nice Information Co., Ltd. and KIS Information Communication Co., Ltd.

The bank company computer 400 executes the transfer of the payment amount from the mother account to the own account in accordance with the request for executing the transfer of the server computer 300, and inputs the result into the server computer 300.

The server computer 300 requests a bank transfer to the bank company computer 400 with the payment information of the gift certificate 500 input through the computer 200 of the VAN, and further checks whether the gift certificate is valid. .

In FIG. 2, the server computer 300 is a device having a large computing power including a central computing device 301, a server engine 303, a RAM 305, and a ROM 308. In FIG. The computer 300 can perform a large amount of work by executing a huge amount of mathematical operations in information processing or database search. Primarily, a Pentium 4 1.4GHz microprocessor manufactured by Intel may be used as this central computing unit 301. Similarly, athlon xp 1.6GHz microprocessors manufactured by advanced micro devices may be used. These processors implement a 32-bit architecture.

The computer 100 functionally includes an analysis unit 311, a tracking unit 312, a transfer execution request unit 313, and a message generating unit 314.

The analysis unit 311 extracts an identification number, a classification number and a location number of the terminal 100 provided in each affiliate store from the payment information input from the terminal 100. In addition, by extracting the payment amount from the payment information to obtain the information necessary to track the parent account, magnetic account and gift certificates.

The tracking unit 312 searches for related information recorded in the memory device 320 based on the extracted information from the analysis unit 311. The parent account 321 is tracked based on the classification number, and it is confirmed whether it is a valid gift certificate 326 based on the identification number. And the tracking unit 312 checks the magnetic account with the location number.

The transfer execution request unit 313 requests the bank company computer 400 to transfer the amount corresponding to the face value of the gift certificate from the mother account confirmed by the tracking unit 312 through the network interface 339. Accordingly, the bank company computer 400 makes a cash payment by paying as much as the requested amount to the affiliated store of the account through the account transfer. Then, the transfer result is notified to the server computer 300.

The message generator 314 generates approval information based on the facts entered according to the transfer result of the bank company computer 400. The approval information is transmitted to the terminal 100 through the VAN company computer 200. The result is recorded in the transaction history database 323 of the storage device 320.

The data storage device 320 may include a hard disk that is magnetic or optical storage device such as a CD-ROM drive or a flash memory. The data storage device 320 includes the mother account database 321, the magnetic account database 322, the transaction history database 323, the payment information database 324, the authorization information database 325, and the gift certificate database 326. It contains information used in transaction processing. In a preferred example, database software such as Oracle, produced by Oracle, is used to create and manipulate these databases.

The mother account database 321 is bank account information of the issuer who deposits an amount corresponding to the face value of the gift certificate according to the issuance of the gift certificate. Preferably, this database 321, which is recorded according to the issuer of the gift certificate, is tracked according to the classification number and the issuer is identified therefrom.

The magnetic account database 322 is bank account information corresponding to each affiliated store where the terminal 100 is provided. Preferably, this magnetic account is recorded in the database 322 according to the classification number identifying the terminal. According to the face value of the gift certificate input from the terminal 100, the amount corresponding to the face value of the mother account can be transferred to this account to immediately cash the gift certificate.

The transaction history database 323 records and manages those occurring while approving a transaction according to a gift certificate. For example, this records the fact that the bank company computer 400 requests a transfer according to the face value of the gift certificate.

The payment information database 324 records and manages information about a request for payment according to a gift certificate input from a terminal. From this information, data on the gift certificate and data on the settlement amount are extracted, and the transfer of the account is performed therefrom.

The approval information database 325 is generated based on the result of the transfer of the bank company computer 400 as a result of processing the payment information according to the gift certificate.

The gift certificate database 326 records information on the issued gift certificate as shown in the table of FIG. 3. The classification number identifies the issuer of the gift certificate, and the identification number tracks the issued gift certificate. In addition, the identification number and the 'state' can prevent illegal copying of the gift certificate. And since the face value according to the gift certificate is memorized, it is not possible to request the approval of the settlement exceeding the face value.

Then, with reference to Figures 4 to 6 attached to the instant payment method using a gift certificate number in the credit card terminal according to the present invention configured as described above.

First, FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a process of generating payment information based on a gift certificate in a terminal. FIG. 5 shows a flow in the case of using a barcode as a modification of FIG. 4.

In FIG. 4, the purchaser inputs an identification number 505 for distinguishing each gift certificate for each gift certificate through the input means of the terminal (S111). This identification number may be configured as '' in one example. Preferably, it is a combination of numbers that can distinguish each gift certificate.

In step S112, the buyer also inputs a classification number indicating the issuer of the gift certificate into the terminal 100. This classification number 510 is used by the server computer 300 to track the parent account. Therefore, it is of course possible to directly enter the parent account information in place of this classification number in the gift certificate. In this case, the voucher is printed with the account number of the parent account instead of the classification number.

Next, the amount of money corresponding to the face value of the gift certificate is input (S113). Preferably, this face value is equal to the settlement amount.

Based on the input through the steps S111 to S113, the terminal 100 generates payment information (S114). The payment information is inputted to the server computer 300 by inputting the generated payment information to the VAN company computer 200 through the modem 119.

FIG. 5 is a modification of FIG. 4 and illustrates an example of using a gift certificate in which an identification number, a classification number, and a face value are recorded in a barcode. The bar code 515 is a combination of letters and numbers in black and white bar symbols, which makes it easy for a computer to read and enter data quickly. This is read automatically by the optical reader.

The reader unit 113 attached to the terminal reads the barcode 515 of the gift certificate optically with this optical reading device of the barcode (S121).

Then, the reader unit 113 analyzes the barcode to extract the face value, the classification number, and the identification number of the gift certificate (S112). This information is the same as described with FIG. 4 above. In addition, since the following process is the same as the process of Figure 4, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

Payment information input to the server computer 300 through a bar code or an input device is processed as shown in FIG. 6.

In FIG. 6, payment information transmitted from the terminal 100 is received through the network interface 339 of the server computer 300 (S211).

This payment information is stored in the database 324 of the storage device 320 in accordance with the operation of the server engine 303. At the same time, the analysis unit 311 analyzes this payment information and extracts information necessary for processing (S212). This includes the face value, classification number, identification number and location number of the terminal.

Then, the tracking unit 312 retrieves the corresponding database based on the extracted ones, thereby obtaining the information necessary for bank transfer from these numbers.

Preferably, the tracking unit 312 searches the gift certificate database 326 according to the identification number of the gift certificate, and checks whether the gift certificate currently entered into the server computer 300 is a valid gift certificate (S213).

In addition, the tracking unit 312 checks the limit on the approved amount included in the payment information with the gift certificate database 326 so that only the amount within the gift certificate limit can be approved.

If the gift voucher currently entered in the gift voucher database 326 cannot be found, the message generator 314 composes and sends a message to the terminal 100 rejecting the approval for not presently valid voucher. (S′219).

On the other hand, for a valid gift certificate, the tracking unit 312 extracts the parent account of the issuer corresponding to the classification number by searching the mother account database 321 with the classification number of the payment information (S214).

In addition, the tracking unit 312 extracts the magnetic account of the affiliate store corresponding to the position number by searching the magnetic account database 322 with the position number of the terminal (S215).

Then, in step S216, the transfer execution request unit 313 is the authorization amount included in the parent account and the magnetic account and the payment information extracted by the tracking unit 312 through the above steps, preferably the authorization amount is the face value of the gift certificate. The bank company computer 400 immediately requests the transfer of the face value from the mother account to the magnetic account (S216).

The bank company computer 400 executes the transfer of the account in accordance with the transfer request of the account. Therefore, the gift certificate is cashed at the moment of payment and deposited into the merchant's account. If the transfer is impossible, the fact is created as a message and transmitted to the server computer 300, and the message generator 314 generates an unauthorized message indicating that transfer is impossible and thus the approval information of the storage device 320. The data is recorded in the database 323 and transmitted to the terminal 100 at the same time.

On the other hand, for a possible transfer, a transfer result message including the amount transferred to the bank company computer 400 is input to the server computer 300. This transfer result message is input to the server computer 300 and recorded in the transaction history database 323.

Then, the message generator 314 generates payment approval information indicating that the amount of the face value has been deposited into the own account based on the transfer result message input from the bank company computer 400, and simultaneously transmits the generated payment approval information to the terminal 100. It is also recorded in the approval information database 325 (S216, S217).

Preferably, in the process of generating payment approval information, the tracking unit 312 in the field indicating the status of the gift certificate in the gift certificate database 326 of the storage device 320 from the 'valid' to 'invalid' Correct it.

As described above, although the present invention has been described by way of limited embodiments and drawings, the present invention is not limited thereto and is intended by those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains. Of course, various modifications and variations are possible within the scope of equivalents of the claims to be described.

According to the present invention, the present invention can solve the problem of avoiding this problem because of the problem of cashing in a limited number of commercially available vouchers, especially the gift vouchers. In addition, the present invention can be used in all stores equipped with a credit card terminal, and can use the conventional credit card network as it is, thereby reducing the cost of constructing a huge cost infrastructure.

Claims (6)

In a credit card payment system comprising a server computer, the present invention relates to a payment method with a gift certificate input from a credit card terminal, Inputting, at the credit card terminal, payment information including a gift certificate identifier, a payment identifier and a transfer identifier based on the gift certificate, and a payment amount to the server computer; Extracting a mother account of the gift certificate based on the payment information; Extracting a magnetic account to which the payment amount is transferred based on the payment information; Executing a transfer of an account from the mother account to the magnetic account based on the payment amount; And Generating authorization information according to the transfer result and transmitting the authorization information to the terminal; How to pay immediately with a gift certificate in a credit card terminal comprising a. The method of claim 1, wherein Checking the face value and the state of the gift certificate in a storage device based on the gift certificate identifier; and immediately paying with a gift certificate in a credit card terminal. The method of claim 1, The voucher is a payment method immediately with a voucher in a credit card terminal, characterized in that the voucher identifier, payment identifier and transfer identifier, and the payment amount is displayed in a bar code. In a credit card payment system comprising a terminal for inquiring a credit card, Apparatus for processing a purchase with a gift certificate input from the terminal, Memory; And A processing device connected with the storage device, The storage device stores a program for controlling the processing device, The processing device, Receiving, at the terminal, payment information including a gift certificate identifier, a payment identifier and a transfer identifier based on the gift certificate, and a payment amount; Extract the mother account of the gift certificate based on the payment information, Extracting a magnetic account to which the payment amount is transferred based on the payment information; Perform a transfer of the account from the mother account to the account based on the payment amount; and And a program for generating approval information according to the transfer result and transmitting the same to the terminal. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the arithmetic unit is And a program for confirming in the storage device the face value and state of the gift certificate based on the gift certificate identifier. The method of claim 1, The voucher is characterized in that the voucher identifier, payment identifier and transfer identifier, and the payment amount is displayed in a bar code.