Patent ID: 7865414

Claim:
A method for managing a financial transaction of a user at both online and offline merchants, comprising: providing via a server a merchant identification signal including an identification of both online and offline merchants for selection by a user; authenticating the user at the server via an authentication signal of a device of the user while the user is at an online or offline site of a merchant selected based on the merchant identification signal, and for an online merchant logging in the user by the server via a login signal sent to the online merchant selected based on the merchant identification signal; transmitting via the user device directly to a financial institution an activation signal for activating a reusable, pre-existing, unaltered and permanent credit or debit card account number of the user from the user device to the financial institution for processing financial transactions, while the user is authenticated and based on the selection of the merchant by the user based on the merchant identification signal from the server; submitting a payment request including the reusable, pre-existing, unaltered and permanent credit or debit card account number to the financial institution from the merchant, while the reusable, pre-existing, unaltered and permanent credit or debit card account number is activated; and de-activating by the user device via a de-activation signal sent by the user device to the financial institution the reusable, pre-existing, unaltered and permanent credit or debit card account number after the payment request is processed and accepted by the financial institution, wherein the financial institution only accepts and processes payment requests received from merchants while the reusable, pre-existing, unaltered and permanent credit or debit card account number is activated, and the financial institution declines payment requests while the reusable, pre-existing, unaltered and permanent credit or debit card account number is de-activated, wherein when the payment request comprises a recurring payment request or a partial payment request and the method further comprises processing the partial payment request including generating one or more subsequent activation signals by the server and generating deactivation information based on the selection of the merchant by the user for processing remaining payments or processing the recurring payment request including generating one or more subsequent activation signals by the server and generating deactivation information based on the selection of the merchant by the user for processing recurring payments, and the generation of the subsequent activation signals by the server do not require further authenticating of the user by the server.