Enhanced protection for account-based transactions through the use of personal authorization criteria
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorMark E. Peters
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Account holders, such as credit or debit card holders, are sometimes concerned that information supplied to a merchant during transactions will be misappropriated and misused for fraudulent purposes. To improve the confidence of account holders that such misuse will not occur, an account holder may add merchant-specific personal authorization criteria to the account record. Criteria may also be established for controlling dealings with merchants for whom no explicit criteria exist.
Claims11
A method for enhancing the security of account-based transactions comprising the steps of:
- receiving a request for authorization from a merchant, the request for authorization including at least an account number and the amount of the transaction;
- identifying an account record associated with the received account number;
- determining whether the account record includes personal authorization criteria provided previously by the owner of the identified account;
- and
- using available personal authorization criteria to process the request for authorization.
A method for enhancing the security of account-based transactions comprising the steps of:
- receiving a request for authorization from a merchant, the request for authorization including at least an account number and the amount of the transaction;
- identifying an account record associated with the received account number;
- determining whether the account record includes personal authorization criteria provided previously by the owner of the identified account;
- where personal authorization criteria relating to merchant-independent properties of the transaction is found, processing the request in accordance with such criteria;
- where no criteria relating to merchant-independent properties of the transaction is found or the request cannot be processed using only personal authorization criteria relating to merchant-independent properties of the transaction, processing the transaction in accordance with any available merchant-specific criteria, otherwise determining whether the account record contains personal authorization criteria for dealing with authorizations requested by previously-unidentified merchants;
- where criteria are found dealing with previously-unidentified merchants, processing the request for authorization in accordance with said criteria;
- and
- where transaction authorization is denied, determining whether the account record includes a consequences-of-denial protocol and implementing any such protocol found.
A system for enhancing the security of account-based transactions comprising:
- a communication system for receiving a request for authorization from a remote merchant, the request for authorization including at least an account number and the amount of the transaction;
- and
- an authorization system comprising
- a computer system for identifying an account record associated with the received account number, determining whether the account record includes personal authorization criteria provided previously by the owner of the identified account, and retrieving any authorization criteria stored as part of the account record, and
- a transaction processing system responsive to the presence of personal authorization criteria to process the request for authorization in accordance with said criteria, said transaction processing system being responsive to the absence of personal authorization criteria to process the request for authorization in accordance with previously established default criteria.
A method of enhancing the security of account-based transactions comprising:
- storing default criteria for processing requests for authorization;
- establishing an account record for a particular account number;
- storing personal authorization criteria provided by the owner of the account in the account record;
- and
- processing requests for authorization in accordance with stored personal authorization criteria;
- otherwise processing such requests in accordance with stored default criteria.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.