Information processing system, information processing method, electronic money service providing system, and recording medium

Abstract

An electronic money system is provided which requires lower management and running cost, and features higher flexibility. An acquirer / brand holder managing an electronic money brand manages all keys used for authentication processing in the system, and issues the keys as necessary. The acquirer / brand holder distributes keys according to a tie-up agreement to IC card issuers, a POS center, an MMK center, and an affiliate merchant terminal unit. The POS center, the MMK center, and the affiliate merchant terminal unit are apparatuses for users to use the IC cards or for managing them. The acquirer / brand holder, however, does not distribute issued keys to cybershops which users can access by using a personal computer and a reader / writer. Instead, in this case the acquirer / brand holder saves the issued key itself, and carries out authentication processing with a predetermined IC card upon a request from the cybershop.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 945,476, filed on Aug. 30, 2001, which claims priority to Japanese Patent Document No. 2000-264923, filed on Sep. 1, 2000, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND[0002]The present invention relates to an information processing system, an information processing method, an electronic money service providing system, and a recording medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information processing system, an information processing method, an electronic money service providing system, and a recording medium that allow many issuers and affiliate merchants to participate in one brand and permit a reduction in cost required for distributing cryptographic keys to issuers and the affiliate merchants and for running and managing a system in an electronic money business.[0003]More integrated circuit (IC) cards are b...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This solution reduces the costs and complexity of managing cryptographic keys, enabling secure and efficient electronic money transactions while maintaining security and flexibility in the electronic money business model.

Problems solved by technology

However, when a single business unit integrally effecting the three functions (a brand holder, an acquirer, and an issuer) runs an electronic money business, the business unit has to assume all the investment in the systems required for running the electronic money business.

These investment costs include the cost of hardware resources, such as terminal apparatuses for affiliate merchants, and the cost for issuing and managing IC cards in running the business.

This has made it difficult to increase profits in relation to the initial investment.

This, however, leads to a complicated business conformation.

Because the electronic money system is run by a plurality of the business units in partnership, it becomes difficult to share the revenue of the entire business among the individual business domains.

In addition, when a single IC card is interactively operated by a plurality of service providers, arrangements must be made so that the information or applications regarding a specific service provided by a certain service provider cannot be accessed without authorization by another service provider interactively operating the IC card.

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