Online payer authentication service

Abstract

A payment authentication service authenticates the identity of a payer during online transactions. The authentication service of the present invention allows a card issuer to verify a cardholder's identity using a variety of authentication methods, such as the use of passwords. Also, the only system participant requiring a certificate is the issuing financial institution. One embodiment of the invention for authenticating the identity of a cardholder during an online transaction involves querying an access control server to determine if a cardholder is enrolled in the payment authentication service, requests a password from the cardholder, verifies the password, and notifies a merchant whether the cardholder's authenticity has been verified. In another aspect of the invention, a chip card and the authentication service independently generate cryptograms that must match in order for the service to verify that the correct chip card is being used by the cardholder.

Description

[0001]This application claims priority of U.S. provisional patent application No. 60 / 199,727, filed Apr. 24, 2000 entitled “Visa Payer Authentication Service Description,” which is hereby incorporated by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates generally to financial transactions, and more specifically to authenticating the identity of payers during online transactions.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]During a payment transaction using a payment card (e.g., a credit, debit, or stored value card), it is important to verify a cardholder's ownership of an account to avoid a variety of problems, such as unauthorized use. Payer authentication is the process of verifying a cardholder's ownership of an account. The most common method to authenticate a cardholder's ownership of an account occurs routinely at a point of sale during what is called a “card present” transaction. A card present transaction involves a merchant's representative taking the cardholder's ca...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]The present invention is directed towards an online service for authenticating the identity of a payer during online transactions. The present invention is relatively easy to implement and use, requires a minimal investment of resources to implement, and provides a high level of interoperability between the system's participants. The authentication service of the present invention allows a card issuer to verify a cardholder's identity using a variety of authentication methods, such as the use of passwords. Also, the only system participant requiring a certificate is the issuing financial institution. The authentication service can also provide authentication results to the merchant in real time during the checkout process.

[0010]The service of the present invention presents many advantages. For example, the authentication service lays the foundation for establishing guaranteed payments for merchants involved with “card not present” transactions. Additionally, the authentication service will reduce chargebacks, frauds, and exception item processing. These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be presented in more detail in the following specification of the invention and the accompanying figures, which illustrate by way of example the principles of the invention.

Problems solved by technology

No guarantee is provided primarily because the payers are not authenticated in such non face-to-face transactions, thereby allowing many risks to accompany the “card not present” transactions.

Such risks involve issues such as chargebacks of payment transactions to online merchants, fraud for both merchants and cardholders, increased exception item processing expenses for banks, and an increased perception that buying goods and services online is not safe and secure, which may keep some consumers from buying online.

Specific examples of risks include the unauthorized use of stolen account information to purchase goods and services online, fabrication of card account numbers to make fraudulent online purchases, and extraction of clear text account information from network traffic.

Prior systems used to authenticate consumers during online transactions have not been widely adopted because these systems were difficult to use, had complex designs, required significant up-front investment by system participants and lacked interoperability.

Such use of certificates is known to be quite burdensome.

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