1. Field of the Disclosure
Aspects of the disclosure relate in general to financial services. Aspects include an apparatus, system, method and computer-readable storage medium to process financial transactions that traverse a non-governmental organization (NGO) network with an interbank network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the non-developed world, when a natural disaster or other calamity occurs, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) come and deliver aid to the stricken area. Traditionally, aid has come in the form of food, shelter, medicine, and other types of goods and services. However, distributing aid is a difficult logistical task and can lead into undesired consequences. Distributing aid vouchers may lead to voucher counterfeiting or theft of the voucher. Moving tons of free food into a stricken area may, for example, may put local farmers and merchants out of business, and damage local market economies.
More recently, non-governmental organizations have attempted to bolster local economies by distributing currency to victims. For centuries, financial transactions have used currency, such as banknotes and coins. In modern times, however, payment cards are rapidly replacing cash to facilitate payments. NGOs have attempted to use the security of payment cards by distributing aid as money or other stored value on a payment card. In such an system 1000, shown in
An NGO payment network server 1300 processes transactions for goods and services on the NGO network 1100. Payment cards issued by the NGO are limited to participating merchants 1110 on the NGO network 1100. Similarly, a consumer using a payment card issued by a financial institution will not be able to user their payment card on the NGO network 1100.
Embodiments include a system, device, method and computer-readable medium that link payment networks.
Embodiments include a method of processing a financial transaction. The method comprises receiving the financial transaction via a network interface. The financial transaction contains a cardholder identifier, a merchant identifier, a transaction type identifier, and a transaction amount. A processor identifies that the financial transaction is a cross-network transaction from either a non-governmental organization (NGO) network to an interbank network or the interbank network to the NGO network. The identification by comparing the cardholder identifier and the merchant identifier. The processor retrieves a cross-network interface rule from a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The retrieval is based at least in part on the cardholder identifier, the merchant identifier and the transaction type identifier. The processor determines whether the financial transaction is permitted by the cross-network interface rule. The network interface transmits a transaction decline when the financial transaction is not permitted by the cross-network interface rule.
An apparatus embodiment processes a financial transaction. The apparatus comprising a network interface and a processor. The network interface is configured to receive the financial transaction. The financial transaction contains: a cardholder identifier, a merchant identifier, a transaction type identifier, and a transaction amount. The processor is configured to identify that the financial transaction is a cross-network transaction from either a non-governmental organization (NGO) network to an interbank network or the interbank network to the NGO network. The identification occurs by comparing the cardholder identifier and the merchant identifier. The processor retrieves a cross-network interface rule from a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The retrieval is based at least in part on the cardholder identifier, the merchant identifier and the transaction type identifier. The processor determines whether the financial transaction is permitted by the cross-network interface rule. When the financial transaction is not permitted by the cross-network interface rule, the network interface is further configured to transmit a transaction decline.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium embodiment is encoded with data and instructions. When the instructions are executed by a computing device, causes the computing device to process a financial transaction. A network interface receives the financial transaction. The financial transaction contains a cardholder identifier, a merchant identifier, a transaction type identifier, and a transaction amount. A processor identifies that the financial transaction is a cross-network transaction from either a non-governmental organization (NGO) network to an interbank network or the interbank network to the NGO network. The identification by comparing the cardholder identifier and the merchant identifier. The processor retrieves a cross-network interface rule from the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The retrieval is based at least in part on the cardholder identifier, the merchant identifier and the transaction type identifier. The processor determines whether the financial transaction is permitted by the cross-network interface rule. The network interface transmits a transaction decline when the financial transaction is not permitted by the cross-network interface rule.
One aspect of the disclosure includes the realization that in some cases, an aid recipient may be mobile, and may travel as a refugee or visitor to areas not covered by a closed-loop NGO network. In such an instance, it would be useful for the aid recipient to be able to access funds or services at a merchant that is not connected to the NGO network.
Yet another aspect of the disclosure includes the understanding that a traveler from the developed world visiting an area covered by the NGO network may not be able to make payments at NGO-approved merchants using a standard payment card that uses an interbank network.
Another aspect of the disclosure includes the realization that a payment network bridge may be used to link an NGO payment network with an interbank network.
In another aspect of the disclosure, a payment network bridge may be used to facilitate secure financial transactions between an NGO payment network and an interbank network.
These and other aspects may be apparent in hindsight to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Embodiments of the present disclosure include a system, method, and computer-readable storage medium configured to enable an immediate online credit refund transaction.
In parallel, payment network bridge 3000 also processes financial transactions on an interbank network 2100, where payment card acquirer financial institutions 2200 (“acquirer”) and issuer financial institutions 2300 (“issuer”) may be connected.
Payment network bridge 3000 is a payment network capable of processing payments electronically over NGO network 1100 and interbank network 2100. An example payment network includes MasterCard International Incorporated of Purchase, New York. Payment network bridge 3000 may analyze and score financial transactions for the probability of fraud. The transaction scores may be expressed as a probability of fraud from zero (entirely fraudulent) to one (100% chance of no fraud), or scored between zero (fraudulent) and 1,000 (100% not fraudulent).
An acquirer 2200 is a bank, credit union, or other financial institution configured to process transaction data from merchants 2110a-b and prepares authorization formatted data for the payment network bridge 3000.
An issuer 2300 is the bank, credit union, or other financial institution that provides the credit for the financial payment transaction. Issuer 2300 processes data (authorization requests), forwarded from the acquirer 2200 by interbank network 2100, and prepares the authorization formatted response (approvals/declines).
In addition, automated teller machines 2120a-b may also be coupled to interbank network 2100.
As described below, because payment network bridge 3000 processes financial transactions on NGO network 1100 and interbank network 2100, it may process transactions that bridge both networks.
Embodiments will now be disclosed with reference to a block diagram of an exemplary payment network bridge 3000 of
Payment network bridge 3000 may run a multi-tasking operating system (OS) and include at least one processor or central processing unit (CPU) 3100, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium 3200, and a network interface 3300.
Processor 3100 may be any central processing unit, microprocessor, micro-controller, computational device or circuit known in the art. It is understood that processor 3100 may communicate with and temporarily store information in Random Access Memory (RAM) (not shown).
As shown in
Payment network processing engine 3112 is the structure that enables the payment network bridge 3000 to communicate with and process data and/or transactions via the interbank network 2100, including from acquirer 2200 and issuer 2300.
NGO network processing engine 3114 is any structure that enables the payment network bridge 3000 to communicate with and process data and/or transactions via the NGO network 1100, including from merchants 1110, ATMs 1120, and the non-governmental organization 1200.
NGO-payment network interface 3116 the structure that allows payment network processing engine 3112 and NGO network processing engine 3114 to communicate with each other. NGO-payment network interface 3116 may apply a set of rules that govern the types of transactions that may occur between payment network processing engine 3112 and NGO network processing engine 3114. These rules may be referred to as NGO-payment network interface rules 3250.
Fraud scoring engine 3118 is a structure that scores financial transactions from payment network processing engine 3112 and/or NGO network processing engine 3114 for fraud. Fraud scoring engine 3118 may use decision tree logic, association rule learning, neural networks, inductive logic programming, support vector machines, clustering, Bayesian networks, reinforcement learning, representation learning, similarity and metric learning, spare dictionary learning, and ensemble methods such as random forest, boosting, bagging, and rule ensembles, or a combination thereof.
Payment-purchase engine 3130 may be any structure that facilitates payment from customer accounts at an issuer 2300, or NGO 1200 to a ATM 1120/2120 or merchant 1110/2110. The customer accounts may include payment card accounts, checking accounts, savings accounts and the like.
Data processor 3120 enables processor 3100 to interface with storage medium 3200, network interface 3300 or any other component not on the processor 3100. The data processor 3120 enables processor 3100 to locate data on, read data from, and write data to these components.
These structures may be implemented as hardware, firmware, or software encoded on a computer readable medium, such as storage medium 3200. Further details of these components are described with their relation to method embodiments below.
Network interface 3300 may be any data port as is known in the art for interfacing, communicating or transferring data across a computer network, examples of such networks include Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Ethernet, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), token bus, or token ring networks. Network interface 3300 allows payment network bridge 3000 to communicate with vendors, cardholders, and/or issuer financial institutions.
Computer-readable storage medium 3200 may be a conventional read/write memory such as a magnetic disk drive, floppy disk drive, optical drive, compact-disk read-only-memory (CD-ROM) drive, digital versatile disk (DVD) drive, high definition digital versatile disk (HD-DVD) drive, Blu-ray disc drive, magneto-optical drive, optical drive, flash memory, memory stick, transistor-based memory, magnetic tape or other computer-readable memory device as is known in the art for storing and retrieving data. Significantly, computer-readable storage medium 3200 may be remotely located from processor 3100, and be connected to processor 3100 via a network such as a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or the Internet.
In addition, as shown in
These structures may be implemented as hardware, firmware, or software encoded on a non-transitory computer readable medium, such as storage media. Further details of these components are described with their relation to method embodiments below.
It is understood by those familiar with the art that one or more of these databases 3210-3250 may be combined in a myriad of combinations. The function of these structures may best be understood with respect to the data flow diagram of
We now turn our attention to the method or process embodiments of the present disclosure described in the flow chart of
Initially, at block 4010, payment network bridge 3000 receives a cross network transaction. The cross network transaction may be initially received by the network interface 3300, which forwards the transaction to either the payment network processing engine 3112 or NGO network processing engine 3114, as is appropriate. The cross network transaction data includes: a cardholder identifier (which may be a Primary Account Number (PAN) or other unique payment card identifier), a merchant identifier, an issuer identifier, an identifier for the type of transaction taking place (a transaction type identifier), and a transaction amount. In cases where a Primary Account Number serves as the cardholder identifier, the first six digits of the PAN identifies the issuer; these six digits of the PAN are referred to as an Issuer Identification Number (IIN) or Bank Identification Number (BIN). The BIN is an issuer identifier; the issuer identifier indicates whether the issuer is on an NGO network 1100 or an interbank network 2100. Similarly, the merchant identifier indicates whether the merchant 1110/2110 (or the merchant's acquirer 2200) is on the NGO network 1100 or the interbank network 2100.
Comparison between the cardholder identifier (or issuer identifier) and the merchant identifier allows payment network bridge 3000 to determine that the transaction is a cross network transaction. It is understood that payment network merchant database 3220, NGO cardholder database 3230, and/or NGO merchant database 3240 may be consulted to determine that the transaction is a cross network transaction.
The transaction type identifier indicates whether the transaction is a purchase, a return, a cash withdrawal, a deposit, and so on.
Once identified as a cross network transaction, at block 4020, NGO-payment network interface 3116 evaluates the financial transaction and determines whether the transaction complies with the NGO payment network interface rules 3250. Typically, the NGO-payment network interface 3116 examines the type of transaction taking place (via the transaction type identifier), the transaction amount, and the parties involved in the transaction (the issuer, the merchant, and the cardholder) in making the determination. For example, in some embodiments, an interbank network cardholder or account holder may always be able to deposit value on to an NGO payment card account. In other embodiments, an NGO payment card account may be restricted to purchases from grocery stores when shopping from a non-NGO network merchant 2110. In addition to deposits and restricted merchant categories outside the NGO network, additional stipulations for cross network transactions may include:
When the NGO-payment network interface 3116 determines that the transaction complies with the NGO payment network interface rules 3250, at decision block 4030, standard transaction processing applies, block 4040—the transaction is scored by fraud scoring engine, and forwarded on the issuer of the payment card for approval/decline. If the payment card is a standard payment card on an interbank network 2100, the transaction is forwarded to issuer 2300. When the payment card is an NGO-issued payment card on the NGO network 1100, the transaction may be forwarded to NGO 1200.
When the NGO-payment network interface 3116 determines that the transaction does not comply with the NGO payment network interface rules 3250, at decision block 4030, the transaction is automatically declined, at block 4050.
The previous description of the embodiments is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the disclosure. The various modifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments without the use of inventive faculty. Thus, the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features disclosed herein.
This application claims priority to provisional U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 61/836,588, entitled “Multi-Party Transaction Payment Network Bridge Apparatus and Method,” filed on Jun. 18, 2013.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61836588 | Jun 2013 | US |