Secure electronic payment

A secure electronic payment method for a parking meter, comprising:

• receiving a request for a transaction from a mobile device of a customer, the request received at a vendor processor configured as a computing device;
• confirming, between the vendor processor and a third party payment processor, a payment for the transaction identified by the request, wherein confirming the payment comprises the vendor processor sending the payment authorization to the third party payment processor, and receiving a payment approval from the third party payment processor;
• issuing, by the vendor processor, an electronic token to the mobile device of the customer for the transaction, the electronic token encoding a transaction index and a transaction code to be independently verified at the parking meter;
• receiving the electronic token from the mobile device at the parking meter via a local wireless communications protocol that is separate from a communications network established between the mobile device and the vendor processor;
• reading by a token processing module at the parking meter, the transaction index in the electronic token and locating a corresponding index location in a device index stored in memory at the parking meter;
• comparing the transaction code in the electronic token to a stored transaction code at the corresponding index location in the device index at the parking meter;
• confirming validity of the electronic token at the parking meter if the stored transaction code at the corresponding index location matches the transaction code in the electronic token;
• wherein confirming validity is by processing a first command, the first command having at least a command code component, a component with parameters for the command, a validating token index component, and a validating token component;
• and
• negotiating the transaction for the customer by changing a time on the parking meter according to a second command specifying the time to change.

A secure electronic payment system comprising:

• a vending machine comprising a first computer processor;
• a vendor computer comprising a second computer processor;
• wherein the second computer processor is configured to receive a request from a mobile device of a user for a transaction at the vending machine;
• wherein the second computer processor is further configured to confirm a payment for the transaction identified by the request with a third party payment processor having no communication with the vending machine;
• wherein the second computer processor is further configured to issue an electronic token to the mobile device for the transaction, wherein the electronic token encodes a transaction index and a transaction code;
• wherein the first computer processor is configured to receive the electronic token from the mobile device via a local wireless communications protocol separate from a communications network established between the mobile device and the vendor computer;
• wherein the first computer processor is configured to confirm payment for the transaction at the vending machine and negotiate the transaction at the vending machine device, without the first computer processor contacting the third party payment processor, by:
• reading the transaction index in the electronic token and locating a corresponding index location in a device index stored in memory at the vending machine device;
• comparing the transaction code in the electronic token to a stored transaction code at the corresponding index location in the device index at the vending machine device;
• confirming validity of the electronic token at the vending machine device if the stored transaction code at the corresponding index location matches the transaction code in the electronic token;
• wherein confirming validity is by processing a first command having at least a command code component, a component with parameters for the command, a validating token index component, and a validating token component;
• and
• wherein negotiating the transaction is by processing at least a second command.