Patent ID: 7398918

Claim:
A computer-implemented method to facilitate authorization of a payment request at a distributed processing site comprising the steps of: calculating a risk triggering value (RTV) for a transaction account based on historical transactions, wherein said historical transactions include at least one of: purchases, cash advances, payments, and disputes relating to said transaction account; receiving a request for payment authorization from a merchant point of sale device based on said transaction account, wherein said request for payment authorization is received at a distributed processing site; determining, at said distributed processing site, whether to transmit payment authorization to said merchant POS device, wherein said payment authorization is based in part upon said RTV and wherein said request for payment authorization need not be sent to a central processing site; and, storing transaction information resulting from said request for payment authorization, wherein said transaction information includes at least one of: an identifier of said transaction account, a transaction amount, an authorization message, and a decline message; receiving a new RTV from said central processing site, wherein said new RTV is determined based on said transaction information, and wherein said new RTV is calculated upon receipt of said transaction information.