Patent ID: 8285637

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a computer-based merchant system for evaluating financial risk and from a financial institution, a predefined list of products, wherein each of a plurality of products in the predefined list of products is ranked from a product associated with a greatest financial risk to a product associated with a least financial risk; identifying, by the computer-based merchant system and from a plurality of product orders, a product order associated with a greatest financial risk by comparing the plurality of product orders to the predefined list of products; transmitting, by the computer-based merchant system and from the plurality of product orders, an authorization request only for the product order associated with the greatest financial risk to the financial institution, wherein the product order includes at least one of: a unique product code and a quantity; and receiving, by the computer-based merchant system, an authorization decision from the financial institution that is based on an assessment of financial risk associated with the product order.