SELECTIVE ESCROW USING ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER

摘要

A method is employed to electronically escrow funds from cash sales of a merchant for deposit in an escrow for later use, such as for payment of sales taxes associated with merchant sales. A merchant employs a credit/debit card terminal (1) to request credit/debit card authorization (2) for sales. An electronic funds processor (EFP) forwards the requests to one or more credit/debit card issuers (2) for authorization. At the end of a closeout period, the merchant uses the terminal to report cash and credit/debit card sales having associated amounts to be withheld in escrow, and requests payment for transactions associated with the credit/debit sales. An escrow amount is determined by the EFP, and compared the requested payment amount. If the amount to be escrowed is less than the requested payment amount, this amount is subtracted from the requested payment amount and deposited by the EFP in an escrow account. In this manner, escrowing of funds associated with cash sales is automatically accomplished by a merchant request for payments owed for credit/debit card sales.