Patent ID: 8086539

Claim:
A method of processing a transaction involving at least two parties, the method comprising: establishing rules that define transaction processing between combinations of a plurality of origination entities and a plurality of destination entities; storing the rules at a storage arrangement associated with a host computer system; receiving at the host computer system transaction information relating to the transaction between the two parties, wherein: the transaction comprises a financial transaction involving a credit account, one of the parties comprises a particular one of the origination entities that is a merchant bank, one of the parties comprises a particular one of the destination entities that is an issuing bank, the transaction information contains at least a credit account identifier from which at least one of the parties may be identified, and the merchant bank is a financial entity that processes transactions on behalf of a merchant; at the host computer system, using the transaction information to identify at least one of the parties and to identify that at least one of the parties belongs to a card association network, wherein the card association network comprises a computer processing system that routes and settles financial transactions; consulting the storage arrangement to determine the rules that define transaction processing for the at least one party; determining from the rules that the transaction is allowed to be settled outside of the card association network; and processing the transaction based, at least in part, on the rules by requesting funds from the issuing bank to pay the merchant bank using rules directly established between the merchant bank and the issuing bank outside of the card association network.