Patent ID: 8639846

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a transaction in a first format from a merchant point of sale device at a gateway; determining application level information for the transaction, wherein the application level information comprises information used in processing the transaction; determining a rule based on the application level information, wherein determining the rule comprises determining the merchant point of sale device from the application level information and determining merchant point of sale device-specific rules for processing the transaction in a database or based on one or more merchant point of sale device subscriptions to services provided by a service provider, and wherein the merchant point of sale device-specific rules include one or more dynamic and static conditions for switching the transaction across a plurality of networks, wherein different service providers are accessible through the plurality of networks; applying the rule to the application level information; determining a service for the transaction based on the application of the rule to the application level information, wherein rules for the different service providers are stored at the gateway; based on a set of service provider rules associated with the service provider for the determined service: translating the transaction from the first format into a second format specified by the service provider for the determined service, and processing the transaction in the second format; and sending the processed transaction to the merchant point of sale device.