Patent ID: 8494957

Claim:
A payment system for restaurant merchants that provides privacy of customer bankcard data of a customer from a merchant system, comprising: a. a restaurant bill that shows a payment amount and a service code, the service code includes a merchant number identification to a central computer system that is independent from the merchant system; b. a wireless device of the customer, (i) is entered a data of the service code, a payment amount, and an optional tip into the device, and (ii) the device wirelessly sends the data to the central computer system which pre-stores customer data and merchant data; c. the central computer system has a processor (i) that identifies the customer (ii) processes a payment request from the customer to the merchant by retrieving customer and merchant data and submits a payment transaction request to an existing payment authorization network (iii) receives a payment approval record from the payment authorization network (iv) wirelessly sends a payment approval notification to the customer on the wireless device and (iv) sends the payment approval notification to the merchant system, wherein the central computer system in lieu of the merchant system having submitted the payment transaction request, the payment system maintains privacy of customer bankcard data from the merchant system.