Pre-transaction Data Exchange via Third-Party Intermediary
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cardholders face uncertainty when attempting to use their payment cards as merchant acceptance and available funds are not always clearly advertised, leading to potential transaction failures and embarrassment.
Innovation Solution
A mobile phone application that allows users to privately confirm whether their payment card is accepted by a merchant and if they have sufficient funds for a transaction by receiving account and merchant data through a third-party service, without risking declined transactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a cardholder attempts to use their payment card at a merchant without prior confirmation, then the transaction process is simple and direct, but the cardholder risks transaction failure and embarrassment due to unknown card acceptance or insufficient funds
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by sending balance inquiry requests to the card issuer and checking merchant acceptance status before the actual transaction. This pre-verification ensures the cardholder has sufficient funds and the merchant accepts their card type, eliminating transaction failures while maintaining user convenience through automated background checks.
2Loss of information
If a cardholder checks their balance and merchant acceptance information before a transaction, then uncertainty and embarrassment are avoided, but additional time and communication steps are required
Solution Approach 1:
A third-party server acts as an intermediary between the user device, card issuer, and merchant data. The user device sends a single request containing location, proposed transaction amount, and payment card data. The third party coordinates multiple background operations (balance inquiry, merchant data retrieval) and consolidates results into one response message, minimizing user time investment while ensuring complete information delivery.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by sending balance inquiry requests to the card issuer and checking merchant acceptance status before the actual transaction. This pre-verification ensures the cardholder has sufficient funds and the merchant accepts their card type, eliminating transaction failures while maintaining user convenience through automated background checks.
3Measurement precision
If a user device sends multiple separate requests to check balance and merchant acceptance, then each piece of information can be obtained accurately, but the complexity of the communication process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple separate communication operations into a single integrated request-response cycle. The user device sends one request containing all necessary parameters (location, proposed transaction amount, payment card data), and the third party coordinates multiple background operations (balance inquiry, merchant data retrieval) before returning a consolidated response. This reduces communication complexity while maintaining data accuracy through systematic processing of each information type.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer implemented method of obtaining account data and merchant data, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a first request message from a user device at a third party, the first request message containing proposed transaction amount data, location data and payment card data; sending a second request message to a card issuer from the third party, the second request message containing a balance inquiry and payment card data; receiving a first response message from the card issuer at the third party, the first response message containing balance data related to the balance inquiry and payment card data; interrogating a database to obtain merchant data based on the location data; and sending a second response message to the user device from the third party, the second response message containing response data, related to the balance data, and the merchant data.