Patent ID: 6752313
Filing Date: 2004-06-22
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
A method enabling a merchant to establish a merchant account for processing credit-card transactions whereby the merchant may begin processing transactions upon submitting an on-line merchant account application, the method comprising the steps of:providing from a merchant to an application processing entity an indication that the merchant wishes to establish a merchant account; transmitting over the Internet from the application processing entity to the merchant a merchant account application requesting data for establishing a merchant account; transmitting over the Internet from the merchant to the application processing entity the data for establishing a merchant account; at the application processing entity, creating an account associated with the merchant; at the application processing entity, maintaining a database of available active merchant identification numbers (MIDs) that may be used to uniquely identify a merchant, terminal identification numbers (TIDs) that may be used to uniquely identify a particular location from which the merchant will be processing credit card transactions, and gateway identification numbers (GIDs) that uniquely identify various network gateways through which credit card transactions may be routed through a computer network to a transaction processing center; at the application processing entity selecting and assigning a MID, TID, and GID to the merchant account from said plurality of available MIDs, TIDs and GIDs stored in said database; and at the application processing entity transmitting the selected MID, TID, and GID to the merchant.