Patent ID: 8666892

Claim:
A system for preparing electronic payments received by a merchant for processing, the system comprising: a payment handler device located at a merchant location, wherein the payment handler device does not include any merchant profile information stored therein and does not require any programming specific to the merchant, the payment handler device including: a first communication interface to receive transaction information related to a sale transaction between the merchant and a consumer where the consumer is paying via an electronic payment, wherein the transaction information includes a transaction price and electronic payment information for the consumer; a second communication interface to a communications network; non-volatile non-programmable memory containing a unique device identification, wherein the unique device identification is written to the memory during manufacture and can not be modified thereafter; a processor; and a processor-accessible storage medium to store processor executable instructions, which, when executed by the processor causes the processor to: receive the transaction information via the first communication interface, retrieve the unique device identification from the non-volatile non-programmable memory, generate an electronic payment transaction message, wherein the electronic payment transaction message includes at least a portion of the transaction information and the unique device identification and does not include any merchant profile information; and transmit via the second communication interface the electronic payment transaction message; and a processing switch including: a communication interface to provide external communications; a database to store information for a plurality of merchant accounts, wherein the information stored for each merchant account includes merchant profile information and the unique device identification for the payment handler device utilized by the merchant; a computer-accessible storage medium to store computer executable instructions, which, when executed by a computer causes the computer to: receive via the communication interface the electronic payment transaction message from the payment handler device, retrieve from the database the associated merchant profile information for the unique device identification included in the electronic payment transaction message; and reconfigure the electronic payment transaction message based on the merchant profile information, wherein the reconfigured electronic payment message includes at least a portion of the merchant profile information.