Patent ID: 7020633

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for processing purchase card transactions submitted by a plurality of merchants, comprising: defining, in a card product database, a plurality of card types processable by an acquirer, each card type corresponding to a group of purchase cards and having associated therewith a set of merchant-independent processing parameters defining merchant-independent processing rules for transactions for each card type; for each of the plurality of merchants: creating, in a merchant database, a merchant card type list for the merchant, the merchant card type list including a subset of the plurality of card types and having a merchant-specific group of purchase card identifiers associated with each card type in the subset and a plurality of merchant-specific processing parameters defining merchant-specific processing rules for transactions for card type; and for each purchase card transaction: receiving, by a host computer communicably coupled to the merchant database, transaction data for the purchase card transaction, the transaction data including a purchase card identifier of a presented card: matching, by the host computer, the purchase card identifier of the presented card to one of the merchant-specific groups of purchase card identifiers in the merchant card type list in the merchant database, thereby identifying a card type for the presented card; obtaining from the card product database, by the host computer, the merchant-independent processing parameters associated with the identified card type; obtaining from the merchant database, by the host computer, the merchant-specific processing parameters associated with the identified card type; and processing and routing the purchase card transaction by the host computer in accordance with the processing rules defined by the merchant-specific processing parameters obtained from the merchant database and the merchant-independent processing parameters obtained from the card product database.