Patent Application
20100250376
The present disclosure relates generally to online payment transactions. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a payment acceptance application for accepting credit card payments for online transactions using mobile devices.
Online payment transactions have greatly facilitated the purchases of goods or services made over the Internet. For merchants, the ability to accept credit card payments online offers the assurance that payments will be made for the goods or services provided. The purchaser's credit card account may be verified for its validity and for sufficiency of funds, and the amount of purchase transferred from the credit card account to the merchant's account receivable. For purchasers alike, the ability to use credit cards for online payments offers unparalleled convenience. However, a merchant's ability to accept credit card payments often depends on the availability of credit card processing terminals. For a merchant traveling or visiting clients, the merchant may not have ready access to the use of credit card processing terminals, thus preventing the parties from consummating the payment transaction. Therefore, it is desirable for merchants to have the ability to accept credit card payments from anywhere and at anytime.
Systems and methods are disclosed herein to allow merchants having accounts with payment service providers to accept credit card payments using their mobile devices such as a cell phone, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) etc. A payment acceptance application running on the mobile device allows a merchant to enter the purchaser's billing and order information including credit card information, to preview the information, to transmit the information to a remote website for payment processing, and to receive a confirmation that the transaction has completed successfully.
In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, a payment acceptance apparatus includes a processor of a mobile device, and a memory that stores instructions for execution by the processor of the mobile device to provide a payment acceptance application for accepting credit card payments on the mobile device.
In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, a method for accepting credit card payments using a mobile device includes displaying fields for entering order and billing information, accepting entries for the fields, transmitting the order and billing information to a remote website for payment processing, and receiving a confirmation of successful payment processing.
In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, a computer program in a mobile device that includes a computer readable medium having instruction code for execution by a processor to perform a method, where the method includes displaying fields for entering order and billing information, accepting entries for the fields, transmitting the order and billing information to a remote website for payment processing, and receiving a confirmation of successful payment processing.
These and other embodiments of the present disclosure will be more fully understood by reference to the following detailed description of the embodiments when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures.
Systems and methods are disclosed to allow users who are subscribers of payment services to accept credit card payments using mobile devices without the use of credit card processing terminals. The mobile devices may be cell phones such as an iphone, a Google Phone, a Window Mobile, or PDAs with access to the Internet. The payment services may be provided by payment service providers such as PayPal Inc. of San Jose, Calif. Subscribers of the payment services may be merchants who have established accounts with the payment service provider to process credit card payments. For example, embodiments of the present disclosure allow a merchant on the go to use a mobile device running a payment acceptance application to access the merchant's PayPal account through the Internet. The merchant may enter a buyer's credit card information for payment processing by PayPal and to have PayPal transfer the payment amount from the buyer's credit card account into the merchant's PayPal account. The systems and methods disclosed may be extended to buyers who are subscribers of the payment service to make credit card payments using mobile devices. Thus, a buyer with a PayPal account may use the mobile device to make a purchase using a credit card and to have PayPal transfer the purchase amount from the credit card into the buyer's PayPal account so that the payment may be made to the merchant.
Information entered through the Virtual Terminal application 102 is transmitted from the mobile device 101 through a network 103 to the remote website 104, which may be a server running the payment processing application. Status information is also transmitted from the website 104 back to the mobile device 101. The network may be the Internet or other type of communication network through which the mobile device 101 communicates with the website 104. The interface between the mobile device and the website 104 may be through PayPal's API (Application Programmers Interface) or other suitable interface to ease application development. For example, using a suitable API, the Virtual Terminal application 102 may invoke low level functions in the payment processing application 105 to request payment processing. The website 104 runs the payment processing application 105 to process payment information such as the credit card information of the buyer. The payment processing application 105 verifies the credit card number and, if the verification is successful, transfers the requested payment amount from the credit card to the user's PayPal account. After the payment transaction is successfully completed, the payment processing application 105 sends a confirmation back to the Virtual Terminal application 102. Otherwise, the payment processing application sends status information back to the Virtual Terminal application 102 to inform the user that the payment transaction fails to complete.
The billing information tab allows the payment acceptance application to capture order and billing information for the transaction. The optional information tab may be used to capture additional information for the transaction that may not be required but is useful to have. The preview tab presents the information captured from the billing information tab and the optional information tab to the user for final verification and editing before the information is transmitted to the payment processing application. The send tab transmits the entered information to the payment processing application for payment processing. Finally, the logout tab allows the user to log out from the user's payment service account.
In 204, the user may select the billing information tab to enter basic information for the purchase. The billing information tab captures and displays detailed order information and payment information for the purchase. The information may be further grouped by relevancy for ease of presentation and navigation. For example, information pertaining to the purchase amount may be grouped together under an order details category. Under the order details category, there may be fields for entering the order amount, for selecting the type of currency used to make the purchase, the region or zip code of the purchaser, the shipping method, and the transaction type. Based on the information entered, the order details category may display the rate of sales tax, calculate the sales tax, the shipping charge, and the total purchase amount. Similarly, information for the credit card may be grouped under the payment information category. Under the payment information category there may be fields for selecting the credit card type, for entering the credit card number, the expiration date, and other credit card information. In 205, the user interacts with the payment acceptance application to enter order and billing information into the billing information tab.
To simplify user interface, the payment acceptance application may calculate and populate certain field entries based on the information that has been entered. The information in these populated fields is for display only and is not amenable to direct editing by the user. For example, the payment acceptance application may populate the tax rate field based on the tax jurisdiction of the purchaser. The payment acceptance application may also query for additional entries based on the type of information previously entered. For example, the payment acceptance application may query for the proper tax jurisdiction from the user only if the transaction is taxable, such as when the user has specified that the transaction is for the purchase of goods.
In one embodiment of the current disclosure, the user may initially select the currency field under the order details category. The currency field may display a pop-up submenu presenting the currency available for making the purchase. The user may proceed to select a currency. Based on the selected currency, the payment acceptance application may determine the country or the region from which the purchase originates. To determine the tax jurisdiction and the sales tax rate, the payment acceptance application may require additional information. For example, the billing information tab may present a field under the order details category for the user to enter a sub-region designation or a zip code within the originating region or country. Based on the originating country or region, along with the sub-region or zip code information, the payment acceptance application may determine the proper tax jurisdiction. From the tax jurisdiction, the payment acceptance application may determine the sales tax rate and populate the tax rate field with the correct tax rate.
The order details category may also present a transaction type field for the user to select the type of transaction for which payment is made. For example, the transaction may be a payment for the purchase of goods, potentially subjecting the purchase to sales tax in the tax jurisdiction from which the purchase originates. Alternatively, the transaction may be a payment for services rendered, in which case there may not be any tax levied against the transaction. The transaction may also be payments for a combination of goods and services, in which case the user may be prompted when entering the order amount to further break down the order amount into an amount for goods purchased and an amount for service rendered.
The user may then proceed to select the order amount field to enter the order amount for the purchase in the selected currency. From the order amount, the tax rate displayed in the tax rate field, and the transaction type, the payment acceptance application may calculate and display the sales tax in the tax amount field. To calculate any shipping charge, the billing information tab may also display a field for the user to enter the shipping address. After the user enters the shipping address, a shipping method field may be presented showing the available shipping methods and the associated shipping charge. The user may proceed to select the desired shipping method. The billing information tab may then display the shipping charge for the selected shipping method in the shipping charge field. To calculate the total amount, the payment acceptance application may add the order amount, the tax amount, and the shipping charge for displaying the total amount in the total amount field.
Under the payment information category, the billing information tab may present fields for the user to enter information on the credit card to be used for the purchase. For example, there may be a field for the user to select the type of credit card, a field to enter the credit card number, a field for the security code, and a field for the expiration date. As the user enters the credit card information, the payment acceptance application may run an initial validation of the entered information and, if the information is determined to be invalid, prompt the user to make corrections. For example, the payment acceptance application may validate the credit card by determining if the credit card number has the right number of digits or if the expiration date is a future date. If the credit card number does not have the right number of digits, or if the expiration date is a date in the past, the user is alerted and prompted to enter the correct information. Thus, the initial validation step detects obvious errors so that the user may correct the information right away without having to wait for the payment processing application to reject the credit card information when it tries to authenticate the credit card information later on.
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The payment processing application processes the payment by verifying the validity of the credit card number and requesting that the total amount charged be debited from the credit card and transferred into the user's account with the payment service provider. Referring back to
Once the payment has been successfully processed or if the user wants to exit the payment acceptance application, the user may select the logout tab 215 to terminate the transaction process. The mobile device then displays the login window for the next session.
Where applicable, various embodiments provided by the present disclosure may be implemented using hardware, software, or combinations of hardware and software. Also where applicable, the various hardware components and/or software components set forth herein may be combined into composite components comprising software, hardware, and/or both without departing from the spirit of the present disclosure. Where applicable, the various hardware components and/or software components set forth herein may be separated into sub-components comprising software, hardware, or both without departing from the spirit of the present disclosure. In addition, where applicable, it is contemplated that software components may be implemented as hardware components, and vice-versa.
Application software in accordance with the present disclosure, such as program code and/or data for the payment acceptance application, may be stored on one or more computer readable mediums. It is also contemplated that the application software identified herein may be implemented using one or more general purpose or specific purpose computers and/or computer systems, networked and/or otherwise. Where applicable, the ordering of various steps described herein may be changed, combined into composite steps, and/or separated into sub-steps to provide features described herein.
Although embodiments of the present disclosure have been described, these embodiments illustrate but do not limit the disclosure. For example, payment with a credit card is described; however other payment mechanisms may also be suitable for use, such as a debit or bank card. In addition, although PayPal is used as the payment service provider in the descriptions, any suitable on-line payment provider or financial services provider may be used to process payments from the mobile device. It should also be understood that embodiments of the present disclosure should not be limited to these embodiments but that numerous modifications and variations may be made by one of ordinary skill in the art in accordance with the principles of the present disclosure and be included within the spirit and scope of the present disclosure as hereinafter claimed.
