Payment Gateway for Multi-Merchant Terminals
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing payment systems in shared environments, such as airports, face challenges in certification and maintenance due to the need to support multiple merchants and payment providers, leading to complexity and reduced flexibility in processing transactions securely.
Innovation Solution
A payment processing system that uses a common architecture to connect multiple payment providers, allowing a single terminal to process transactions for multiple merchants while maintaining secure payment transactions and adhering to PCI compliance, by storing a single key and routing transactions through a message broker using TLS 1.2 encryption, supporting multiple payment service providers, and enabling full chip-and-pin payments according to EMV standards.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a single payment terminal runs multiple 3rd party payment applications for different merchants, then the terminal can serve multiple merchants in a shared environment, but the certification becomes complex and maintenance becomes difficult when changes occur in any payment application
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the payment processing functionality by introducing a payment gateway that acts as an intermediary layer between the terminal and multiple payment service providers. Each payment application communicates with the gateway through standardized interfaces, isolating certification requirements to the gateway component rather than requiring recertification of the entire terminal ecosystem when payment applications change.
Solution Approach 2:
The payment gateway serves as an intermediary component that mediates between merchant payment applications and payment service providers. It provides a stable, certified interface that remains unchanged even when payment applications or providers are updated, thereby maintaining certification while enabling multi-merchant support and flexible updates.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a payment aggregator processes payments for all merchants using a shared terminal, then the terminal can be shared among multiple merchants, but the aggregator acts as a single merchant of record which reduces choice and competition among payment service providers and creates difficulty in processing refunds or chargebacks
Solution Approach 1:
The payment gateway acts as an intermediary that preserves the original merchant-of-record relationships. Instead of the aggregator becoming the merchant of record, the gateway enables direct communication between merchants and their chosen payment service providers, maintaining merchant autonomy and simplifying refund and chargeback processing while still enabling shared terminal usage.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple merchant applications run concurrently at a single terminal with separate payment processors for each, then each merchant can have their own payment processing, but the device complexity increases and the limited key storage slots in payment terminals constrain the number of supported merchants
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple payment processing functions into a single payment gateway that handles communications with multiple payment service providers. Instead of requiring separate payment processors for each merchant application, the gateway consolidates these functions, reducing device complexity and key storage requirements while maintaining the ability to process payments for multiple merchants concurrently through a unified architecture.
Data Source
AI summary
A payment processing system is discloses. The system comprises a module configured to receive a payment request for a payment transaction from one of a plurality of different merchant applications associated with a computing device wherein the request comprises payment information comprising a merchant code or transaction identifier; in response to receiving the payment request, receive encrypted payment data from a reader coupled to the computing device wherein the payment data comprises an account number associated with a user wherein the account number is encrypted according to a first key; and transmit the payment information and the encrypted payment data to a payment server.