WO2002031734A9

WO2002031734A9 - Incentives through a financial account

Info

Publication number: WO2002031734A9
Application number: PCT/US2001/031598
Authority: WO
Inventors: Noal B Long; Jeffrey G York
Original assignee: Capital One Financial Corp
Priority date: 2000-10-12
Filing date: 2001-10-11
Publication date: 2003-02-20
Also published as: WO2002031734A1; AU2002211576A1

Abstract

A method and system is disclosed for a creditor to provide a financial account statement of a customer, either online or offline, with a set of offers for financial incentives from a merchant. Each offer may require a customer to make a qualifying transaction with the merchant offering the financial inventive and to pay for the qualifying transaction using the customer's financial account, such as a credit card from a creditor. The customer may select to accept or decline each offer. If the customer accepts an offer, the creditor system will record the necessary information so that in the subsequent transaction between the customer and the merchant in which the customer transacts for the qualifying transaction using the credit card, the customer will receive the financial incentives, i.e., the discounted or savings amount, recorded in the subsequent financial account statement.

Description

TITLE OF THE INVENTION

INCENTIVES THROUGH A FINANCIAL ACCOUNT BACKGROUND AND MATERIAL INFORMATION

I. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to systems and methods for providing financial incentives to customers. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for providing and applying financial incentives to a transaction with a merchant through a financial account of a customer.

II. Description of the Related Art

The practice of sending advertising information or including it with other types of information is well established. For example, in the retail sales industry, an advertisement of a merchant may be sent in a mass mailing to customers or may be included with a mailing (such as a bank statement or a credit card statement) to inform a diverse consumer population about the goods or services available from the merchant.

It has also been a marketing practice for merchants to offer financial incentives to customers, such as discounts, coupons, rebates, and the like. Financial incentives may be sent or distributed through different types of communication channels, such as inserts to a local newspaper, a radio or television broadcast, a telephone marketing campaign or mass mailings to consumers. Despite the benefits associated with financial incentives, some people are reluctant to use discounts, coupons and the like because it is inconvenient to collect and organize them. In addition, customers are reluctant to use coupons since it is difficult to remember to bring the appropriate coupon when shopping.

With the emergence of the Internet has come a gradual migration from the traditional channels of communication to newer and more dynamic channels of communication, including the World Wide Web (WWW). Until now, distributing information via the Internet or other publicly accessible, computer communication networks has been largely unsupported by advertising revenues due to the lack of good mechanisms for mixing advertising with information content in such a way as to be acceptable to both end users and advertisers.

There are examples of computer programs which contain and/or provide advertisements to customers. In such examples, the advertisements are either permanently embedded in the computer programs or reside permanently with computer programs such that they cannot be easily updated. The conventional "pop up" windows is a prime example of this particular type of advertisement.

Presently, with the emerging era of shopping through computer networks or online, merchants electronically offer financial incentives or offers to customers. According to a recent study, almost one third of online ^• shoppers use some form of promotional offers, such as discount coupons, rebates, and the like. One advantage of the online form of promotional offers is that, it is easier to target the type of consumer profiles for a certain type of product or service. However, one disadvantage of all promotional offers currently available in the market is that, for either online shopping or conventional shopping at a merchant's store, customers must remember to show or indicate proof of the promotional offers at the point of sale to receive applicable discounts. There is no seamless integration of applying the discounted amount to the purchasing customer or the customer's financial account.

Therefore, there is a need for an improved way of disseminating offers of a merchant, either provided online or offline, to a widespread number of customers. There is also a need for systems and methods that can automatically apply a financial incentive to a transaction and integrate the application of such financial incentive with the customer's financial account.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the present invention provide an electronic financial account statement with embedded tags that allow a credit card customer to review their electronic financial account statement online, and selectively view Web-based merchant advertisements that correspond to individual credit card transactions. Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the present invention also provide a way to integrate the application of a merchant's offer for financial incentives, either online or offline, to a customer's financial account statement.

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a networked data- handling system including a plurality of creditor and customer servers/computers. The networked data-handling system may also include merchant server/computers. When a merchant server is utilized, the merchant server is programmed to receive credit card transaction records from point of sale terminals, and to cause the transaction records to be sent to a creditor server operated by a credit card issuer. The merchant server also stores merchant's offer data, which could be in the form of hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) pages for transmission to requesting customer computers. The creditor server may be programmed to receive credit card transaction records from merchant servers (or a merchant transaction data base), to create an electronic financial account statement comprised of a plurality of credit card transactions, with an associated display of merchant's offers for financial incentives, and to cause electronic account statements to be sent to customer computer. The customer computer is programmed to receive the electronic financial account statement and to cause a merchant's offers for financial incentives to be displayed on the customer's display screen in response to the invocation of a tag embedded in the electronic financial account statement.

When the customer is viewing the merchant's offers for financial incentives, the customer will be prompted to accept or decline the merchant's offers. If the customer selects acceptance, the next time the customer transacts with the merchant, either via online or offline shopping, and the customer uses the credit card provided by the creditor, the transaction including the amount of financial incentives saved will be recorded and indicated on the subsequent financial account statement.

Advantageously, this invention creates an attractive avenue for integrating a merchant's offers for financial incentives into a customer's electronic financial account statement and thereby provide the customer with meaningful financial savings reflective of their purchasing habits that simultaneously provides the merchant with a worthwhile and beneficial avenue for advertising the products sold or services provided.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, that are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate presently preferred embodiments of the invention and, together with the general description given above and the detailed description of the preferred embodiments given below, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

Fig. 1 is an exemplary block diagram of the relationship among a creditor, a merchant, and a customer, consistent with the principles of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is another exemplary block diagram of the relationship among the creditor, merchant and customer;

Figs. 3A and 3B are exemplary flow charts of the operations and processes associated with providing financial incentives to customers, consistent with the principles of the present invention;

Figs. 4A - 4G are exemplary web pages of an electronic financial account statement posting a merchant's offers for financial incentives consistent with the principles of the present invention;

Fig. 5 is an exemplary diagram consistent with the principles of the present invention from the creditor's perspective; Fig. 6 is an exemplary diagram consistent with the principles of the present invention from the merchant's perspective; and

Fig. 7 is an exemplary diagram consistent with the principles of the present invention from the customer's perspective.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part thereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration a specific embodiment in which the invention may be practiced. This embodiment is described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limited sense.

The embodiment of the invention described herein is implemented as logical operations in a computing system. The logical operations of the present invention are implemented: (1 ) as a sequence of computer implemented steps running on the computing system, and (2) as interconnected machine modules within the computing system. The implementation is a matter of choice dependent on the performance requirements of the computing system implementing the invention. Accordingly, the logical operations making up the embodiments of the invention described herein are referred to variously as operations, steps, or modules.

The operating environment in which the present invention is used encompasses general distributed computing systems wherein general purpose computers, work stations, or personal computers are connected via communication links of various types. In a client server arrangement, programs and data, many in the form of objects, are made available by various members of the system.

In accordance with the invention, users at remote terminals in a network communicate through the network to a server or a web site and are able to download data from the server or web site to the user's client work station. As the embodiment of the invention is described herein, a web browser program on a client station for browsing a network, such as the Internet, will be referred to as the browser, while the server work station with which the browser station is communicating during a download will be referred to as the server.

Systems consistent with the principles of the present invention comprise a plurality of merchant, creditor and customer computers. Each type of computer (merchant, creditor, and customer) may be generally similar to every other type of computer including a central processing unit, display device, and operator input device. Moreover, it will be appreciated that each type of computer may also perform operations described herein as being performed by every other type of computer. The distributed system may comprise any one of a number of types of networks over which client computers and server computers communicate, including local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), the Internet and any other networks that distribute processing and share data among a plurality of nodes. The online services typically provide functionality such as electronic mail (email), file transfer protocol (FTP), and World Wide Web (WWW) access.

The WWW is a graphical subnetwork of the Internet. With common "web browser" software of the type of Mosaic, Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, users may easily access Internet information and services on the WWW. The web browser handles the function of locating and targeting information on the Internet and displaying information provided by a web server. The WWW utilizes the technology called "hypertext" to organize, search and present information on the Internet. Using the browser, a user can select a word ("hypertext word") from a viewed document, and be linked to another document featuring information related to the word. These links are within the web server domain and result in a progressively deeper search or base of choices. In the business arena, a merchant can, with an Internet address and a hypertext editor, develop a hypertext document called a "home page", which a user may explore when they visit the merchant's Web server. This home page furnishes information about the products or services offered by the merchant through use of graphic images, sound, hyperlink choices, etc. With that information, the user is guided through the home page to select or purchase the goods or services from the merchant.

Referring now to the drawings, in which like reference numerals represent like elements throughout the several figures, the present invention will be described.

Fig. 1 generally illustrates the relationship between a creditor 10, merchant 20, and customer 30, in accordance with the principles of the invention. The relationship between creditor 10 and merchant 20 is governed by a pre-negotiated deal or arrangement. Under such an arrangement or deal, creditor 10 will post a set of transaction offers from merchant 20 for a plurality of customers 30 of creditor 10 to transact with merchant 20 for some specific qualifying goods or services. Each transaction may have a financial incentive associated with it. The relationship between creditor 10 and customer 30 is generally a creditor-debtor one, whereby creditor 10 provides a line of credit to customer 30 and a credit card for customer 30 to charge purchases, and, upon receiving a periodic financial account statement from creditor 10, customer 30 pays creditor 10 for the financial services provided. The relationship between merchant 20 and customer 30 is generally a supplier-consumer one, whereby merchant 20 provides products or services to customer 30, and customer 30 pays merchant 20 for the value of the goods or services provided.

Fig. 2 is another illustration that indicates the relationship between a creditor 10, merchant 20, and customer 30, in accordance with the principles of the invention. As illustrated in Fig. 2, in accordance with a pre-negotiated deal between creditor 10 and merchant 20, creditor 10 will post a set of transaction offers for a customer to transact with merchant 20 for some specific products or services under a qualifying condition to receive a financial incentive. The financial incentive, such as a discount, coupon or rebate, may provide the product or service at a reduced cost or a percentage of the total value or a specified dollar amount. Associated with each transaction offer are several offer standards including information with respect to: (1 ) the types and quantity of specific goods or services to which the offer applies, and (2) the qualifying conditions or limitations for the applicable transaction (for example, an expiration date, territorial limitations of a merchant, etc.).

When customer 30 views the financial incentive, customer 30 may accept or decline the financial incentive. The financial incentive may be displayed to customer 30 as part of the financial account statement of the customer. Each financial incentive accepted by customer 30 may be automatically applied by creditor 10, through the financial account of customer 30, for each applicable and qualifying transaction with merchant 20. Merchant 20 may reimburse creditor 10 for costs associated with each financial incentive.

In practice, merchant 20 may contact creditor 10 or one of its managers to negotiate offers and offer details. After merchant 20 and creditor 10 pre-negotiate a deal with respect to the offers, merchant 20 may contact creditor 10 or its offer administrator to communicate offers. The offer administrator of creditor 10 then uploads offers into a merchant offer database. The merchant offer database may be electronically connected to an online account servicing system of creditor 10. The online account servicing database may have a coupon offer engine. The offers may be rendered in DHTML programming language to customer 30 via the online account servicing system.

Figs. 3A and 3B are exemplary flow charts of the processes and operations associated with providing financial incentives, consistent with the principles of the invention. As illustrated in Fig. 3A, the process starts (S.300) when a customer 30 accesses and views his/her financial account statement (S.305). In accordance with an aspect of the invention, the financial account may be a credit card account, bank account or a similar financial account of customer 30. Each customer 30 may access and view his/her financial account statement in various ways, including receiving and viewing a printed statement mailed to the customer or accessing and viewing financial account information online through a Web site associated with creditor 10.

As further shown in Fig. 3A, and in accordance with the principles of the invention, the financial account statement of customer 30 (which may be issued or generated by creditor 10 on a periodic basis, such as once a month) is provided with one or more merchant transaction offers that include a financial incentive, i.e., a discount, coupon, rebate or the like (S.310). Each transaction offer may be attached or included with the financial account statement provided from creditor 10 to customer 30. Such transaction offers may be sent to one or more customers 30 of creditor 10 or provided only to certain groups of customer 30 that satisfy a predefined customer profile, such as spending patterns, age group, professions, etc. The customer profile is generally stored in a customer profile database that creditor 10 maintains. Thus, creditor 10 may provide the ability for merchants 20 to target transaction offers to customer 30 based upon the predefined profile.

As indicated above, the financial account statement may be generated periodically and made available to customer 30 either via regular mail or electronically when customer 30 accesses their financial account statement via the Internet using a customer computer 32. Customer 30 may apply for a password or personal identification number (PIN) for accessing their financial account to obtain the online financial account statement. Other security measures may also be provided to guarantee the confidentiality of the customer's financial account information.

When customer 30 views their financial account statement, the customer will be given the option to accept each merchant's transaction offer that includes a financial incentive (S.315). If the offer is received through the mail, customer 30 may accept the offer by sending confirmation of acceptance to creditor 10 by return mail, by email, by calling a customer representative of the creditor, or by communication through the creditor's Web site. Alternatively, acceptance of the offer may be automatic and becomes effective when customer 30 purchases the goods or services from predesignated merchant 20 according to the qualifying condition.

If the offer is viewed by customer 30 online via the Internet, customer 30 may respond by any of the methods described above (e.g., by mail, by email, by telephone, or by communication through the creditor's Web site). Figs. 4A-4G, to be further described, are exemplary response pages of a creditor's Web site through which customer 30 may respond and accept an offer.

An offer screen, such as shown in Fig. 4A, gives customer 30 an option to view one or more transaction offers currently provided by merchant 20. While in the offer screen or in a subsequent screen, customer 30 may view the transaction offers in more detail, including the specific goods or services to which each of the offers applies, the qualifying conditions of the applicable transaction, etc. In one embodiment, the offers in the offer database may be updated with or without real-time processing to manage the volume of offers.

As illustrated in Fig. 3A, customer 30 will be prompted to select an option of either accepting or declining each offer that includes a financial incentive (S.315). If customer 30 chooses to "Accept" an offer, then the creditor system will gather information such as the accepted offer, identity of merchant 20, and financial account identify of customer 30. This information will be tagged and/or stored into an accepted offer database of creditor 10 (S.320).

As further illustrated in Fig. 3A, if customer 30 chooses to "Decline" an offer, then the process ends (S.325) and customer 30 may return, for example, to viewing the screen prior to the offer screen or viewing another screen. The creditor system may record each offer declined by customer 30 in an offer history database. Each customer 30 may also have the option of selecting "Decline - never again" when customer 30 does not wish to ever receive an offer from merchant 20 again. In addition, each customer 30 may select "Cancel" to close a particular offer screen. When customer 30 chooses to cancel offer, customer 30 may be prompted to again select accepting or declining the offer in the subsequent occasion of reviewing their financial account statement.

At the time each customer 30 chooses to accept any of the offers, creditor system will inform a set of qualifying conditions, such as limits and constraints corresponding to each of the offers. The qualifying conditions may include, for example, (1 ) that the discount or rebate amount may not appear on the financial account statement of customer 30 until the subsequent billing cycle, (2) an interest will accrue on any outstanding balance, including the purchase amount(s) of accepted offer transactions, (3) merchant 20 may impose purchase amount limits as a limit of the offer, (4) there may be product limitations on the purchases, i.e., no alcohol, tobacco, etc., (5) there may be numeric limits to the number of offers customer 30 may receive, (6) there may be limits to the offers, i.e., offers cannot be combined, transferred, etc.

As illustrated in Fig. 3B, continuing the flow chart from Fig. 3A (S.330), when customer 30 executes a transaction with merchant 20, customer 30 pays for the goods or services using the credit line of the financial account provided by creditor 10 (S.335). Customer 30 may execute the transaction either online or in person at the location of merchant 20 using the offer. If customer 30 has sufficient credit and the transaction is approved by creditor 10 (S.340), then merchant 20 will charge the transacted goods or services for a full price at the point of sale for the total amount. Creditor 10 will subsequently determine if the transaction is a qualifying transaction for applying the offer and financial incentive for the specific goods or services (S.345). When a transaction involving the offer is executed, offer identity is logged in and the transaction is registered in the accepted offer database. If the transaction is determined to be a qualifying transaction, then no discount may be applied at the point of sale by merchant 20. Instead, any discount or rebate will be applied by creditor 10 when the next financial account statement of customer 30 is generated.

In particular, creditor 10 may identify the transaction information and related offer involving customer 30 and merchant 20 (S.350). The creditor system will merge or cross reference the data in the accepted offer database of creditor 10 and a transaction data base of merchant 20. Then the creditor system applies the discounted amount to the transaction price based on the offer accepted by the customer.

When customer 30 receives via the mail, or logs on the Internet to view, the financial account statement, normally at the end of a billing cycle, the financial account statement will indicate each accepted offer and, if the accepted offer has been used, the amount of discount associated with the accepted offer (S.355). Customer 30 may also view a running total of all offers used for the calendar year. Customer 30 sees and feels the benefits in terms of financial savings in the financial account statement, either provided online or in a printed format (customer computer print out or original print out from creditor 10). In addition, customer 30 are free from the inconvenience of carrying around and managing the conventional printed or paper offers, such as coupons, rebates, etc. An electronic mail may be used as a traffic generator to communicate to each customer 30 who accepts one or more offers that there are new offers posted or when the accepted offers are about to expire.

As further illustrated in Fig. 3B, the merchant system will retrieve information from the transaction database of merchant 20 including purchases made by customer 20 using the offer (S.360). Creditor 10 will then receive reimbursement from merchant 20 when the amount of discount is charged back to merchant 20 (S.365). This may be performed generally via a finance or accounting department of creditor 10. Creditor 10 may submit to merchant 20 a report, periodically or otherwise, of the number of offers accepted or declined, the total dollar amount of the period's accepted offer discounts and possible other analyses.

The processes of applying the amount of discount to the financial account statement of customer 30 and obtaining reimbursement from merchant 20 may driven off of several interconnecting databases, including the offer accepted database and offer history database. These data artifacts and processes will feed the finance and accounting department of creditor 10 with reconciliation, financial account processing, management information system, online account servicing system, print operations, etc.

Figs. 4A-4G illustrate, for exemplary purposes, web pages of creditor 10 that customer 30 may view the transaction offer from merchant 20. Fig. 4A illustrates an offer screen 410 imbedded with a financial account statement 412 of customer 30 with creditor 10. Customer 30 may view transaction offers currently provided by merchant 20. Offer screen 410 may include logo tags, for instance, ToysRus, Circuit City, Home Depot, and Borders, as merchant 20. When customer 30 selects a particular merchant, i.e., ToysRus, customer 30 will be prompted to a subsequent screen 420 illustrated in Fig. 4B.

Fig. 4B illustrates a screen 420 providing further information on the offer from the selected particular merchant. Customer 30 is prompted to accept the offer by selecting an ACCEPT key 422, or to decline by selecting a DECLINE key 424. If customer 30 selects ACCEPT key 422, customer 30 will be prompted to a screen 430 illustrated in Fig. 4C. If customer 30 selects DECLINE key 424, customer 30 will return to the financial account statement 412 illustrated in Fig. 4B.

Fig. 4C illustrates screen 430 confirming offer acceptance when customer 30 selects to accept the offer. At this point, customer 30 may select a key 432 to redeem the offer immediately, by making an online purchase of goods or services under the qualifying condition, at which point customer 30 may be connected to the Web site of the selected particular merchant, i.e., ToysRus.com. Otherwise, customer 30 may select a key 434 to return viewing the financial account statement 412.

Fig. 4D illustrates an alternative screen 440 to view all offers currently available from a plurality of merchants 20, instead of selecting a particular merchant from those shown on screen 440. From screen 440, similar to the financial account statement 412, customer 30 may select a REWARDS key 442 to view all offers available.

Fig. 4E illustrates a screen 450 if customer 30 selects REWARDS key 442. Screen 450 may include one or more offers from merchants 20, i.e., Sears, which is not included in the previous screen 440.

Fig. 4F illustrates a screen 460, similar to screen 440, in which customer 30 may select a MY SAVINGS key 462 to view a summary report on all financial savings of customer 30 during a calendar period.

Fig. 4G illustrates a subsequent screen 470 containing a summary report 472 which provides information including a list of merchants 20, the number of offers redeemed from each merchant 20, the associated amount of financial savings received by customer 30, and the total saving amount to date.

Fig. 5 is an exemplary diagram that illustrates, from the perspective of merchant 20, the process for providing financial incentives consistent with the principles of the present invention. Merchant 20 contacts creditor 10, i.e., the Relationship Manager of creditor 10, to negotiate offers and offer details (S.510). In addition, merchant 20 also contacts creditor 10, i.e., the Offer Administrator, to communicate offers. The negotiation may be done in person, via telephone or the internet. Merchant 20 may also register with creditor 10 to participate in the offer program, such as by merchant 20 signing up as affiliate of creditor 10, either via online registration or otherwise. According to the negotiation, creditor 10 uploads offers into a merchant offer database (S.520). The merchant offer database can be a separate database or an integral database with other functions or systems of creditor 10. The offer data in the merchant offer database are merged or cross- indexed with a database containing information regarding an online account servicing customers, and the offers are presented to such customers 30 (S.530). When customer 30 selects to accept the offer, information including the accepted offer identity, the merchant identity, and customer account identity, is tagged or formed into Accepted Offer Identity database (S.540). The information stored in the Accepted Offer Identity database is fed forward to and used for Offer History database (S.541 ), execution of the offer at the conclusion of the transaction (S.542), and Merchant Transaction database (S.543).

The next time customer 30 uses his/her credit line (or credit card) with creditor 10 in a transaction with merchant 20 in return for goods or services, merchant 20 charges full price for the goods or services at the point of sale for the total amount (S.550). The discount related to the offers is not applied at the point of sale. But instead, the transaction along with the discount are reconciled in the financial account statement of customer 30, normally at the end of the billing cycle between customer 30 and creditor 10 (S.560). The financial account statement will be generated based on the information from the Merchant Transaction database.

The saving amount deducted in the financial account statement is charged back by creditor 10, i.e., the Finance and Accounting department, to merchant 20 (S.570). A printed financial account statement of customer 30 is generated (S.575).

In addition, reports/analyses and other reporting functions may be supplemented from the Finance and Accounting department of creditor 10 for merchant 20 to receive a detailed report including the number of offers accepted or declined, the total amount of the accepted offer discounts for a specified period, and other analyses (S.580 and S.585).

Also alternatively, the Finance and Accounting department of creditor 10 may provide a system for merchant 20 to receive a reimbursement from a merchant's creditor (S.590). Further alternatively, merchant 20 may refine, update, or reload a new set of offers for creditor 10 to upload (S.595).

Fig. 6 illustrates, from the perspective of customer 30, the process for providing financial incentives consistent with the principles of the present invention. Customer 30 (or a credit card holder) applies for an access to the online account servicing of creditor 10, so that customer 30 can log into the online account servicing of creditor 10 (S.610). Thereafter, at any time customer 30 can view his/her account status as posted on the online account servicing statement (S.620).

While customer 30 is viewing his/her online account status, customer 30 will be able to view the set of offers for financial incentives to transact with merchant 20 using the line of credit or credit card from creditor 10 (S.630). Customer 30 may click on, for example, "Your Offers" image or link to view an offer listing or to view one or more offers among the set of offers to learn about the detail of the offers (S.640).

Customer 30 is prompted to accept or decline any of the offers (S.650). If customer 30 declines the offer, customer 30 will return to a previous view of his/her financial account statement (S.660). On the other hand, customer 30 may accept the offer (S.670), and customer 30 transacts with merchant 20, i.e., by purchasing goods or retaining services from the merchant 20 offering the financial incentives (S.675). The transaction between the merchant 20 offering the financial incentives and customer 30 may be made online or offline. At the conclusion of the transaction or at the point of sale, customer 30 pays merchant 20 using the credit card from creditor 10 for the full price of the transaction, no discount is indicated on the proof of the transaction.

When customer 30 logs onto the online account servicing to view his/her account statement (S.680), the transaction paid at full price and the saving amount based on the applicable offer will be indicated on the financial account statement (S.685). In addition, the financial account statement may also indicate a running total of saving amount during the calendar year (S.690). Customer 30 may print the financial account statement reflecting the above discussed transaction and other transactions not using the offers (S. 695).

Fig. 7 illustrates, from the perspective of creditor 10, the process for providing financial offers consistent with the principles of the present invention. A set of offers for financial incentives from merchant 20 is uploaded into the merchant offer database (S.710). The merchant offer database is connected to the online account servicing system or other systems of creditor 10 (S.715). The offers may be rendered in DHTML programming language to customer 30 via the online account servicing system.

Offer Administrator of creditor 10 will post the set of offers on the online account servicing system so that the offers will be displayed when customer 30 views his/her financial account statement, either online or offline (S.730). Customer 30 will be prompted to enter selection to accept or decline the offers (S.735). For online customer 30, if customer 30 declines the offer, customer 30 will return to a previous view of his/her financial account statement (S.730). On the other hand, customer 30 may select to accept the offer, in which the creditor system will capture information including account identity of customer 30, identity of merchant 20 offering the financial incentives, the amount or percentage of the financial incentives, any limitations or constraints of the offer, etc. (S.735). This information will be recorded in the accepted offer database. Customer 30 will be presented with the details of the offers, including any limitations or constraints in applying the offer.

When customer 30 transacts with merchant 20 for the qualifying goods or services and uses the credit card of creditor 10 to finance the transaction, the creditor system will identify the transaction made by customer 30 at the merchant 20 which provided the accepted offer (S.740, S.745, and S.750). The creditor system will then cross reference the transaction database of merchant 20 with the accepted offer database (S.755), and the creditor system applies the corresponding financial incentives for the qualifying transaction (S.760). That is, the creditor system will apply the discounted amount or savings to the transaction value that was paid for at the full price.

A database, including a merchant accepted offer database or the transaction database of merchant 20 (S.765), is generated based on the information captured in S.735 and is used in S.760 to cross reference with the accepted offer database of creditor 10 to apply the qualifying transaction with the discounted amount based on the offer's financial incentives. Information from the merchant accepted offer database (S.771 ) and information on accepted and used offers (S.772), i.e., by customer account identity, are utilized to update the offer history database (S.770).

Information regarding the history of discount amount S.773 from S.760 and a summary of discount amount S.774 from S.770, are utilized to update the online account servicing system and a printed statement may thereafter be generated (S.785).

The Finance and Accounting department of creditor 10 extracts the information from S.760 to perform a reconciliation between merchant 20 and creditor 10 (S.790). The Finance and Accounting department may generate a report or perform other analyses (S.795). The merchant accepted offer database from S.765 and the offer history database from S.770 may also report or be used to perform analyses in S.795.

From the foregoing description, it will be appreciated that the present invention provides an efficient system and method for combining financial transaction data (such as credit card transaction data) with merchant's offers for financial incentives and presenting the combined information of the qualifying transaction and the corresponding savings to a customer over the Internet or in a printed format of financial account statement. The present invention has been described in relation to a particular embodiment which is intended in all respects to be illustrative rather than restrictive. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many different combinations of hardware will be suitable for practicing the present invention. Many commercially available substitutes, each having somewhat different cost and performance characteristics, exist for each of the components described above.

Although aspects of the present invention are described as being stored in memory, one skilled in the art will appreciate that these aspects can also be stored on or read from other types of computer-readable media, such as secondary storage devices, like hard disks, floppy disks, or CD-ROMs; a carrier wave from the Internet; or other forms of RAM or ROM. Similarly, the method of the present invention may conveniently be implemented in program modules that are based upon the flow charts and other drawings described above. No particular programming language has been indicated for carrying out the various procedures described above because it is considered that the operations, steps and procedures described above and illustrated in the accompanying drawings are sufficiently disclosed to permit one of ordinary skill in the art to practice the instant invention. Moreover, there are many computers and operating systems which may be used in practicing the instant invention and therefore no detailed computer program could be provided which would be applicable to these many different systems. Each user of a particular computer will be aware of the language and tools which are most useful for that user's needs and purposes.

Alternative embodiments will become apparent to those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains without departing from its spirit and scope. For example, although the invention is described above with reference to credit card accounts, the invention may be implemented with other types of financial accounts, such as savings accounts, checking accounts, debit card accounts, etc. Accordingly, the scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims rather than the foregoing description.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. A method for providing an incentive to customers, the method comprising: providing an account statement to a customer; including, with the account statement, an offer for an incentive that is valid for a particular type of transaction; and applying the incentive associated with the offer to the account statement when the customer makes the particular type of transaction.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: obtaining reimbursement of the incentive from an offer provider.

3. A method for providing an incentive to customers, the method comprising: displaying an account information to a customer; and including, with the display, an indication for an offer for an incentive; wherein the incentive is applied to the account information when the customer makes a particular type of transaction.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising: obtaining reimbursement for the incentive from an offer provider.

5. A system for providing an incentive to customers, the comprising: a first data storage system for maintaining account information of customers; and a second data storage system for maintaining information on offers for incentives, the second data storage system being electronically connected to the first data storage system; wherein at least one of the offers for incentives is applied to a corresponding account information of the customer when the customer makes a particular type of transaction.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising: a system to reimburse the at least one of the offers for incentives to an offer provider.

7. A method for providing a transaction offer through a financial account of a customer, the method comprising: providing a financial account statement to the customer, wherein the customer is associated with the financial account; including, with the financial account statement, the offer that is valid for a qualifying transaction; recording an acceptance of the offer by the customer; detecting the qualifying transaction by the customer in which the accepted offer is applied toward the qualifying transaction made through the financial account of the customer; applying to the financial account statement of the customer a financial incentive associated with the accepted offer.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: obtaining reimbursement of the financial incentive provided to the customer.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the offer is included with the financial account statement associated with a customer having a predefined profile.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising: reminding the customer when the accepted offer is about to expire.

11. A method for integrating a retail transaction when a vendor offers an electronic certificate to consumer via a creditor, comprising the steps of: providing a set of offers for electronic certificate to a plurality of consumer stations via the creditor system; maintaining a database for each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the set of offers; and applying a certificate data through the creditor system for each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the set of offers.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the providing step comprises: selectively providing the set of offers to a portion of the plurality of consumer stations having a predefined profile.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the step of applying a certificate data is performed at a subsequent financial account statement from the vendor system.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of applying a certificate data further comprises: updating a transaction database of the creditor system to incorporate the certificate data.

15. The method of claim 11 , further comprising: obtaining reimbursement of the certificate data from the vendor.

16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising: maintaining a database for each of the plurality of consumer stations which declines the set of offers.

17. The method of claim 11 , further comprising: communicating with each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the set of offers regarding detail information of the electronic certificate.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the communicating step further comprises: transmitting a reminder to each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the set of offers.

19. The method of claim 11 , further comprising: communicating with each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts at least one of the set of offers regarding a second set of offers for electronic certificate.

20. A method for integrating a vendor's electronic certificate data with a creditor system, comprising the steps of: transmitting an offer for electronic certificate from a vendor to a plurality of consumer stations via a financial account statement of the creditor system, each customer being associated with a financial account of the creditor system; receiving an electronic response from a vendor system corresponding to each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts and uses the offer in a transaction with the vendor using the financial account; and applying a certificate data consistent with the offer to the financial account statement each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepted and used the offer.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the transmitting step comprises: selectively transmitting the offer to a portion of the plurality of consumer stations having a predefined profile.

22. The method of claim 20, the applying step further comprises: applying the certificate data to a subsequent periodical financial account statement of each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepted and used the offer.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the applying step further comprises: updating a transaction database of the creditor system to incorporate the certificate data.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the applying step further comprises: applying the certificate data to a subsequent transaction between the vendor system and the creditor system.

25. The method of claim 20, further comprising: maintaining a database for each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer.

26. The method of claim 20, further comprising: maintaining a database for each of the plurality of consumer stations which declines the offer.

27. The method of claim 20, further comprising: communicating with each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer regarding detail information of the electronic certificate.

28. A method for applying an offer of electronic certificate for a plurality of consumer stations from a vendor system to a creditor system, comprising the steps of: maintaining a first database for each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer of electronic certificate; and applying a certificate data to the vendor system through the creditor system for each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the set of offer.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising: maintaining a second database for each of the plurality of consumer stations which declines the offer of electronic certificate.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein the vendor system providing the offer of electronic certificate in a selective manner to a portion of the plurality of consumer stations having a predefined profile.

31. The method of claim 28, wherein the step of applying the certificate data is performed at a subsequent transaction between the vendor system and each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the set of offer.

32. The method of claim 31 , wherein the step of applying the certificate data further comprises: updating a transaction database of the creditor system to incorporate the certificate data.

33. The method of claim 28, further comprising: communicating with each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer regarding further information regarding the electronic certificate.

34. The method ^"of claim 33, wherein the communicating step further comprises: transmitting a reminder to each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer when the creditor system needs a response from the plurality of consumer stations.

35. An apparatus for integrating a vendor's electronic certificate data with a creditor system, comprising: an offer for electronic certificate provided by a vendor system to a plurality of consumer stations via a creditor system; a database system maintaining a database on each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer; and an offer registration system registering a certificate data corresponding to each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer.

36. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein the offer for electronic certificate is selectively electronically provided to a portion of the plurality of consumer stations having a predefined profile.

37. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein the offer registration system registers the certificate data at a subsequent transaction between the vendor system and each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer.

38. The apparatus of claim 37, wherein the offer registration system is electronically connected to the vendor system to update a transaction database between the creditor system and the vendor system, the transaction database being updated to incorporate the certificate data registered to each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer.

39. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein the database system further comprises: a database on each of the plurality of consumer stations which declines the offer.

40. The apparatus of claim 35, further comprising: a consumer relation database to communicate with each of the plurality of consumer stations which accepts the offer regarding detailed information of the electronic certificate.