ELECTRONIC COUPON PROCESSING

摘要

A merchant (102) registers an electronic coupon or incentive offer with a coupon manager (120) through use of an electronic device. The coupon manager (120) forwards the incentive offer to a transaction processor (130) and enables access of the incentive offer to consumers (112) through use of an electronic device. A consumer (112) may select a desired incentive offer and register one or more accounts which may be used in redeeming the incentive offer. The consumer (112) may then comply with the incentive offer through a transaction with a merchant (102) honoring the incentive offer. The merchant (102) processes the transaction by sending suitable information describing the transaction to transaction processor (130) which processes the transaction through an interchange system (132) to effectuate a credit to an account for the merchant (102) at a merchant bank (104), for example, and a debit to the account used by the consumer (112) for the transaction. In processing the transaction, transaction processor (130) determines whether the transaction complies with a selected incentive offer and, if so, processes the transaction in accordance with the selected incentive offer.