Patent ID: 7558758
Filing Date: 2009-07-07
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method of processing payments, comprising: receiving, at a policy engine from an executing application, a business event notification signifying that business processing of a transaction has reached a particular business stage; programmatically determining, by the policy engine responsive to the receiving, which of a plurality of payment-processing policies was previously selected, by a merchant for which the business processing of the transaction is processed by the executing application, to specify how to process a payment when using a payment method that is associated with this transaction, wherein: programmatically determining, by the policy engine, which of the at least three phases of payment processing is applicable to the received business event notification; and using, by the policy engine, the state transition specification for the programmatically-determined applicable phase in the programmatically-determined policy to process the payment using the payment method that is associated with this transaction, further comprising carrying out each of the any actions that are specified in a currently-applicable one of the starting states for interim payment processing in this programmatically-determined applicable phase in the programmatically-determined policy and for which the specified condition is met, wherein: