Patent Application
20120290366
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic transactions, and more specifically, to systems and methods for optimizing purchase benefits by use of multiple financial accounts.
2. Description of Related Art
Financial institutions and various other businesses often provide their customers with financial cards, such as credit cards, debit cards, ATM cards, and other financial data cards. Such financial cards may be associated with a reward program in which consumers are provided with incentives to utilize such cards. For example, credit card companies often provide reward programs that provide purchasers with rewards for purchases made using their credit cards. In some instances, rewards are only provided when purchases are made for certain items, such as groceries and automobile fuel. Example rewards for purchases may include purchase discounts, travel discounts, and “cash back” benefits.
Consumers often carry multiple financial cards that each provides a different reward program. Particularly, for example, one card may provide cash back incentives for purchases of food items, and another card may provide travel points for purchases of automobile fuel or cosmetics. In addition, the monetary benefit of the reward may be greater for purchases of some items as compared to others. In this scenario, it may be advantageous for a consumer to use one financial card rather than another for the purchase of certain items. For at least this reason, it is desired to provide systems and methods for assisting consumers having multiple financial cards to optimize purchase benefits.
One or more embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for optimization of purchase benefits by use of multiple financial accounts. According to an aspect, a method includes determining a category among multiple categories for each purchase item of multiple purchase items. A category of a purchase item may be, for example, a grocery, a service, or the like. The method may include determining reward program benefits associated with financial accounts. A financial account may include, for example, a credit account or a debit account. Further, the method may include associating each purchase item with one of the financial accounts based on the category of the purchase item and the reward program benefits. A purchase item may be associated with the financial account that provides the greatest monetary benefit in exchange for purchase of the purchase item. The method may also include conducting a plurality of purchase transactions for purchasing the purchase items. Each purchase transaction may use a different one of the financial accounts to purchase the purchase item(s) associated with the financial account.
Exemplary systems and methods for optimizing purchase benefits by use of multiple financial accounts in accordance with embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein. Particularly, described herein is a purchase transaction system configured to assist a user with purchasing multiple items by use of multiple financial accounts. The financial accounts may each be associated with different rewards programs having a different benefit for the purchaser. The purchase transaction system may assist the user with optimizing purchase benefits provided by the financial accounts when purchasing one or more items. For example, at a point of sale (POS) terminal in a retail store, the system may assist a purchaser of multiple items to use multiple financial cards in a way such that the rewards benefits of the financial accounts are optimized.
As referred to herein, the term “rewards program” refers broadly to any financial program providing rewards in exchange for use of a financial account for a purchase transaction. Example rewards include, but are not limited to, bonus, credit or loyalty incentive including loyalty, award, bonus, incentive, travel points or credits or currencies or miles, travel miles, hotel miles, hotel points, reward nights, reward stays, rental car miles, bonus rentals, rental car points, promotional currencies, award currencies, loyalty currencies, or the like.
In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, a purchase transaction system may be configured to determine a category among multiple categories for each purchase item of multiple purchase items. For example, the system may determine whether each item to be purchased is a grocery, service, office-related item, automobile-related item, consumer item, corporate item, media item, electronic item, home improvement item, or the like. In an example, an item may be assigned to multiple categories. The system may also be configured to determine reward program benefits associated with multiple financial accounts. For example, the system may determine reward program benefits for each of a purchaser's financial accounts. Reward program benefits may include, but are not limited to, loyalty point information, travel credit information (e.g., flyer miles), discount information (e.g., coupons), gift information, cash back information, donation information, and the like. The system may then associate one or more of the purchase items with one of the financial accounts based on the category of the purchase item and the reward program benefits. For example, a purchase item may be associated with the financial account among the purchaser's financial accounts that provides the greatest monetary benefit in exchange for purchase of the purchase item. Next, the system may use the multiple financial accounts to conduct multiple purchase transactions for purchasing the purchase items. Each purchase transaction may use a different one of the financial accounts to purchase one or more items associated with the financial account. By separating item purchases among the financial accounts in this manner, benefits of the reward programs may be optimized for purchasing the given purchase items.
The scanner 106 may be capable of reading a machine-readable image representing data from a purchase item 114. The scanner 106 may be a handheld device that can be passed over a barcode (e.g., a universal product code (UPC) or any other machine-readable image) on the purchase item 114 or may be built into a counter or platform whereby products are passed over the scanner. Further, the scanner 106 may read data from purchase items and transmit the data to the transaction terminal 102 via, for example, a wireless or wireline connection. In an example, the machine-readable image on the purchase item 114 may represent identification of the purchase item. Identification of the item may alternatively be provided to the transaction terminal by, for example, a user entering an identifier, such as a number, representing the item. The identification may be used for accessing data associated with the purchase item, such as, but not limited to, information for determining a category or pricing of the purchase item 114.
The user interface 108 may include a keyboard device that enables a shopper to input account and payment information for processing by the transaction terminal 102. For example, the user interface 108 may include a scanning device for reading a shopper's financial card (e.g., credit card or debit card) including account number. The keypad device may enable a shopper to enter a personal identification number (PIN) if using a debit card. The user interface 108 may include a display for displaying purchase and transaction information to the shopper. For example, the user interface 108 may be a touchscreen display for displaying text and graphics and for receiving user input. The user interface 108 may be communicatively coupled to the transaction terminal 102 via wireless or wireline elements.
The item detection device 110 may include a scale, sensor, or other instrument that captures information relating to purchase items. In an example, the item detection device 110 may detect the presence of a purchase item at a bagging area. Further, for example, the item detection device 110 may capture weight, dimension, color, and/or other measurements of purchase items. The transaction terminal 102 may use this information for identifying the item. The item detection device 110 may be communicatively coupled to the shopper terminal 110 via wireless or wireline elements (e.g., serial cable, 802.11 technologies, and the like).
In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, the transaction terminal 102 may include a transaction manager 116 configured to determine purchase item categories, to determine reward program parameters associated with multiple financial accounts, and to associate each purchase item with one of the financial accounts. The sales module 104 may be configured to conduct multiple purchase transactions for purchasing purchase items for optimizing purchase benefits provided by the financial accounts. In an example,
Referring to
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The method of
In an example, the purchase transaction system 100 of
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The method of
The method of
In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, the transaction manager 116 may use the read data to request identification of a financial account or other information about the financial account from a remote server. For example, the transaction terminal 102 may be communicatively coupled to a centralized server 130 via one or more networks 132. The transaction terminal 102 may be configured to communicate a request for financial account identification and/or other financial account information from the server 130. The request may include data read from one or more financial cards for use by the server 103 in retrieving the financial account identification or other information. The server 130 may be configured to provide financial account identification to the transaction terminal 102 in response to a request.
In embodiments of the present invention, data for identifying financial accounts of a purchaser may be read from a loyalty card, rewards card, points card, advantage card, and/or club card. Such cards may include a magnetic stripe containing data that may be read by the user interface 108. The read data may include user profile information that may be used to identify financial accounts of the purchaser. The read data may be communicated to the transaction manager 116. The data may identify the purchaser. The transaction manager 116 may use the purchaser identification for performing a lookup in the data store 128 for financial accounts associated with the purchaser. Alternatively, for example, the transaction manager 116 may use the purchaser identification for requesting financial account identification and/or other financial account information from the centralized server 130. Financial account information or other data for identifying a financial account may be read from a contactless payment instrument presented by the purchaser (e.g., RFID chip).
The method of
The method of
The method of
In an example of financial benefits, the financial account of financial card 122 may provide 1% cash back rewards in exchange for all purchases, and may provide 5% cash back for purchases of gas, home improvement items, and department store items. The financial account of financial card 124 may provide 10% discounts in exchange for purchases of cosmetics. The financial account of financial card 126 may provide 1.25% cash back rewards in exchange for all purchases. For grocery items such as items 114 and 118, purchase of the items by use of financial card 126 provides the greatest monetary benefit, because a 1.25% cash back reward is provided for the purchase, whereas only 1% cash back is provided by use of financial card 122, and no reward is provided for purchase of the item by financial card 124. For cosmetic items such as item 120, purchase of the item by use of financial card 124 provides the greatest monetary benefit, because a 10% discount reward is provided for the purchase, whereas only 1% cash back is provided by use of financial card 122, and 1.25% cash back is provided by use of financial card 126. The transaction manager 116 may determine the financial account providing the greatest monetary benefit for purchase of each item based on the reward percentages. The transaction manager 116 may associate each item with the financial account that provides the highest percentage award for purchase of item.
The method of
10%
The information shown in Table 1 may be displayed to a purchaser in any suitable format. In addition or alternative to the percentage benefit, the transaction manager 116 may determine a monetary value benefit (e.g., dollar amount) for the purchaser by purchase of the item by use of the financial account. In this way, the purchaser may be provided at checkout, such as at a point-of-sale terminal, with detailed information about benefits that may be received by use of financial cards for each of the items to be purchased. By presentation of this information, the purchaser may make an informed decision about the use of his or her financial cards for purchase of the items.
The method of
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In an example, the sales module 104 may implement the multiple purchase transactions by transmitting financial card account transaction information over a network to multiple different financial companies that process the purchase transactions and authorize or decline the transactions. Transactions may also be performed over the Internet by manually entering numbers of the financial accounts and purchaser information. The numbers and purchaser information may be communicated to the financial companies for authorization or decline of the transactions.
In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, the sales module 104 may purchase the items using user-selected financial accounts. For example, the user may enter input for selecting a different financial account than one of the accounts identified in Table 1 for purchasing one or more of the items. In this example, the sales module 104 may use the user-selected financial account and another financial account identified in Table 1 for purchasing the items.
In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, financial accounts may be associated with a user's loyalty profile. Further, the reward benefits for use of each financial account may be associated with the loyalty profile. In an example, the data store 128 of the transaction terminal 102 or a remote server, such as the server 130, may store a user's loyalty profile information including financial account information and reward benefit information for each financial account. In response to identifying a user at the transaction terminal 102, the transaction manager 116 may access the user's financial account information and reward benefit information from the data store 128 or the remote server. The reward benefit information for each of financial account of the user may be displayed or otherwise presented to the user such that the user may select which financial accounts to use when purchasing items.
In accordance with embodiments of the present invention, a transaction terminal may store information about multiple items and current reward information for financial accounts of a purchaser. Example item information includes, but is not limited to, pricing information and category information. The current reward information may be a current total of rewards for each financial account of the user. Such reward totals may be used for determining which of the financial accounts would provide the greatest monetary benefit for the purchase of one or more items to be purchased by the user in accordance with embodiments of the present invention. The item information and reward information may be stored, for example, in the data store 128 shown in
As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the present invention may be embodied as a system, method or computer program product. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in one or more computer readable medium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon.
Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may be utilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium (including, but not limited to, non-transitory computer readable storage media). A computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A computer readable signal medium may be any computer readable medium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.
Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter situation scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
Aspects of the present invention are described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. For example, aspects of the present invention are described with reference to the diagram of
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer readable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.
The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
