Consolidated Payment Account System for Privacy and Flexibility
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Solution Overview
Problem
The rise of online commerce has created a need for alternative payment and funding vehicles that can facilitate secure transactions while protecting the privacy of participants, as traditional payment systems struggle with universal merchant acceptance and inadequate privacy protection, especially when using non-standard payment sources.
Innovation Solution
A consolidated payment account system that stores value from various sources, enabling secure online and offline transactions by authenticating participants, authorizing transactions, and settling payments, while shielding the identities of participants and allowing the use of multiple payment sources without altering existing payment infrastructures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If non-standard payment vehicles are used to facilitate online transactions, then payment flexibility and consumer choice are improved, but device complexity and infrastructure adaptation requirements worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a consolidated account as an intermediary layer between consumers and merchants. Consumers fund this consolidated account with various non-standard payment vehicles (gift cards, loyalty points, cash equivalents), and the consolidated account then processes payments to merchants using standard infrastructure. This mediator consolidates multiple payment types into a unified interface, improving payment flexibility without requiring merchants to adapt to complex infrastructure changes.
Solution Approach 2:
The consolidated account serves multiple functions: it accepts various payment types from consumers, maintains a unified account structure, processes transactions through standard infrastructure, and provides consistent billing. This multi-functional design allows a single account system to handle diverse payment sources, improving versatility while maintaining infrastructure simplicity.
2Ease of operation
If traditional payment infrastructure is used for non-standard payments, then ease of operation is improved, but loss of information about payment sources worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The consolidated account acts as an intermediary that preserves payment source information while simplifying the transaction interface. It records which payment vehicles were used to fund the account, maintains this information in the account history, and provides it to consumers for billing purposes, while presenting a unified simple interface to merchants.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback mechanisms that track and report payment source information back to consumers through consolidated statements. This feedback loop ensures that while the transaction processing remains simple for merchants, the information about payment sources is preserved and communicated to consumers for their records and billing.
3Ease of operation
If multiple payment sources are consolidated into a single account, then ease of operation is improved, but device complexity worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple payment source systems into a single consolidated account structure. Different payment vehicles (gift cards, loyalty points, cash equivalents) are combined into one unified account with a single account number and balance. This consolidation simplifies account management for consumers while the underlying system handles the complexity of integrating multiple funding sources through standardized APIs and processing mechanisms.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention provides a system and method for providing and/or facilitating complete on-line payment services while protecting the privacy of the transaction participants. The comprehensive payment service is based upon a consolidated account used to store value acquired through on-line transactions. The invention provides private payment numbers for protecting the identities of the participants and includes processes for authenticating participants, authorizing transactions, and settling payments. Thus, the present invention enables merchants to effectively accept non-standard forms of payment without changing their current payment infrastructures and enables the provision of value for purchases at any network merchant using any source of value.