Patent ID: 8321338
Filing Date: 2012-11-27
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method of processing an electronic payment, comprising: storing a database that includes, for a particular merchant, a list of customer registration account numbers assigned to a set of registered customers and corresponding financial account numbers, wherein each customer registration account is part of a customer registration program specific to the particular merchant, and wherein the financial account numbers were previously registered by the respective registered customers and identify preferred payment accounts to be used to make payment when the registered customers make purchases from the particular merchant and present respective customer identification devices as payment devices; receiving, at a point of sale system comprising a computer executing a program stored on a computer readable medium, at the particular merchant at the time of a purchase transaction, a customer identification device presented by a consumer to the particular merchant as a payment device, the customer identification device bearing one of the customer registration account numbers appearing in the database; identifying the customer registration account number of the customer registration account associated with the customer identification device; receiving a personal identification number (PIN) from the consumer and verifying that the PIN matches a reference PIN previously associated with the customer registration account; forming, by the point of sale system, a generated personal account number (PAN) by appending a proprietary routing code to the customer registration account number, the PAN formatted for transmission as a payment device number over an electronic funds transfer network; forwarding, by the point of sale system, information about the transaction, including the generated PAN and a transaction amount, to an acquirer of payment transactions; accessing, based on the generated PAN, from the database, the preferred payment account identifier corresponding to the customer registration account number and previously provided by the holder of the customer registration account; and initiating payment of the transaction from the preferred payment financial account.