ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

摘要

The invention relates to a method of and system for facilitating a financial transaction between a merchant and a purchaser at a location remote from the merchant. In one embodiment, the method (200) includes providing a payment terminal (102) which includes a card reader (122) and which is remote from the merchant (1 12) and receiving by the payment terminal (102) a user input from the purchaser to request initialisation of the transaction. Thereafter, the method (200) includes sending a transaction message from the payment terminal (102) to the merchant (1 12) to initialise the transaction and receiving a configuration message from the merchant (1 12), the configuration message associating the card reader (102) with the merchant (1 12), thereby creating a virtual transaction channel (109) across a telecommunications network (104) between the merchant (1 12) and the payment terminal (102). The method (200) further includes reading a financial card of the purchaser with the card reader (122) and sending a financial message from the payment terminal (102) across the virtual transaction channel (109) to the merchant (1 12), the financial message including details read from the financial card.