Patent ID: 8688581

Claim:
A product purchase authorization processor-implemented method comprising: receiving, at an address of an acquirer for a merchant, a payment network authorization request message that includes: an employee benefit account identifier for an employee benefit account; an address of a merchant; and a product inventory code for each of a plurality of different products; sending the payment network authorization request message from the address of the acquirer for the merchant to an address of a payment network system; sending the payment network authorization request message from the address of the payment network system to an address of an issuer of the employee benefit account; determining, by a processor, using the payment network authorization request message, that the employee benefit account identifier is valid by matching the employee benefit account identifier against a stored set of employee benefit account identifiers, and if so then for each of the respective said products: determining that each of the product inventory codes in the payment network authorization request message matches a qualified product category under the employee benefit account, and if so then: sending, in response to the payment network authorization request message, an authorization response from the address of the issuer to the address of the payment network system, wherein the authorization response includes an authorization for the use of the employee benefit account for a payment transaction; sending the authorization response from the address of the payment network system to the address of the acquirer for the merchant; and sending the authorization response from the address of the acquirer for the merchant to the address of the merchant.