Point-of-Sale System for Transparent Transaction Fee Display

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Traditional customer transactions lack transparency due to hidden or non-transparent fees, making it difficult for merchants to accurately predict revenue in real-time and for customers to make informed payment choices.

Innovation Solution

A computing system that retrieves transaction rates for various payment methods before receiving a payment method from the customer, generates a graphical user interface displaying potential transaction amounts and payment options, and presents this information to the customer.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If merchants charge preemptive additional fees for credit transactions, then they can compensate for higher interchange rates, but this does not address the underlying lack of transparency and provides no benefit to the customer

Engineering Contradiction:

Improverevenue prediction accuracyVSAvoidtransaction fee transparency

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by calculating and displaying the net amount the merchant will receive for different payment methods before the customer completes the transaction. This allows both the merchant and customer to see the actual financial impact of each payment option, enabling informed decisions without requiring preemptive fee charging.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements feedback by providing real-time information about transaction rates and net amounts to both merchants and customers. This feedback loop eliminates information asymmetry, allowing customers to understand the true cost of different payment methods and merchants to accurately predict revenue before transactions occur.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

2Ease of operation

If merchants use hidden or non-transparent fees, then they can maintain simpler pricing structures, but customers cannot make informed payment choices and merchants cannot accurately predict real-time revenue

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepricing structure simplicityVSAvoidtransaction rate transparency

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system acts as an intermediary that automatically calculates and displays transaction rates and net amounts. This intermediary function bridges the gap between simple pricing structures and transparent fee disclosure, allowing merchants to maintain simple customer-facing prices while internally providing comprehensive fee information through the system.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Data Source

PatentUS20250053944A1Variable card fee point-of-sale system

Publication Date: 2025.02.13 WELLS FARGO BANK NA

AI summary

A merchant computing system associated with a merchant includes one or more processors coupled to one or more memory devices, the one or more memory devices having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: receive a plurality of transaction rates corresponding to a plurality of potential payment methods; display the plurality of transaction rates via a merchant user device; receive a transaction offer from the merchant user device; generate display data including a plurality of payment options corresponding to the plurality of potential payment methods and the transaction offer; and cause a graphical user interface based on the display data to be displayed to a customer.