SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ESTABLISHING A PAYMENT MECHANISM WITH A PLURALITY OF MERCHANTS

摘要

A network service operates to initialize and link a card instrument to a merchant or merchant location, so that the merchant can receive funds the service. One or more requests are detected to use the card instrument for one or more transactions, where each transaction involves a corresponding customer who has registered a customer funding account with the network service. For each of the transactions, a merchant account is funded using a funding account of the card instrument.

主权项

1. A system for providing prepaid universal cards for use with merchants, the system comprising:
a plurality of prepaid debit cards that are distributed over a geographic region, each of the plurality of debit cards being distributed to a merchant location in the geographic region, and each of the plurality of debit cards including a card identifier; memory resources which store: a first data structure to store information for each of the plurality of prepaid cards, including (i) an identifier of each of the plurality of prepaid card, (ii) a merchant identifier for each merchant location in the geographic region where the prepaid card physically resides, and wherein for at least a collection of the plurality of prepaid cards, the information includes, (iii) one or more communication identifiers that are associated with each of the prepaid cards of the collection; a second data structure to (i) list an identifier for each customer in a population of customers, (ii) associate a customer communication identifier with the identifier of each customer, the customer communication identifier identifying a communication medium where the customer receives communications, and (ii) associate a funding account of that customer with the customer identifier; one or more processors to execute instructions stored in the memory resources to: process, in connection with a transaction at a merchant location, a customer data set which identifies a given customer identifier from the second data structure; fund a funding account of a prepaid card, the prepaid card being associated with the merchant location; process, in connection with the transaction at the merchant location, a transaction data set which is communicated from a given merchant of the merchant location using one of the communication identifiers associated with the identifier of the prepaid card, the transaction data including an amount of the transaction; confirm, by accessing the funding of the prepaid card, that the given merchant has processed the amount identified by the transaction data set for authorization or payment from the funding source; use the customer communication identifier to provide a communication to the customer identified by the customer data set, the communication identifying the processed amount; and in response to the customer providing the confirmation action, accessing the funding account of the customer for funds that include or correspond to the amount.