Patent ID: 8412540

Claim:
A method of providing eligibility information to a service provider, the method comprising: receiving registration information over a financial network from a point-of-sale terminal, the registration information including a first identifier associated with the point-of-sale terminal and an identification of the service provider; associating the first identifier with information identifying a device disposed at a location of the service provider in a database, wherein the device is different from the point-of-sale terminal; establishing a communication path to the device with the information identifying the device; transmitting a confirmation of registration of the point-of-sale terminal to the device over the communication path; receiving an authorization request over the financial network from the point-of-sale terminal, the authorization request including the first identifier and a second identifier associated with a subscriber; determining an authorization transaction type based on the authorization request, the authorization transaction type indicating whether the transaction is a nominal purchase or an eligibility verification; retrieving the eligibility information from a data store using the second identifier, wherein the eligibility information indicates eligibility of the subscriber to receive a service from the service provider in accordance with a policy of a third party different from the service provider and different from the subscriber, the retrieving the eligibility information based on the determined authorization transaction type; and transmitting the eligibility information to the service provider.