Business event triggered, policy-driven payment management

A method for providing a policy-driven payment processing system, comprising steps of:

• providing a plurality of payment-processing policies, each of the policies specifying how payment transactions for a payment method should be carried out;
• selecting, by a merchant that will use the policy-driven payment processing system, one or more of the provided policies;
• receiving business event notifications representing payment processing units;
• programmatically determining the selected policy that corresponds to each of the payment processing units represented by the received notifications;
• and
• applying each of the programmatically-determined policies to the corresponding payment processing units, thereby moving payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

A system for automated processing of payments, comprising:

• means for receiving a business event notification signifying that a payment processing unit has reached a particular business stage;
• means for programmatically determining a payment-processing policy that has been selected as applying to this payment processing unit;
• and
• means for programmatically determining zero or more actions to be carried out for this payment processing unit, according to the programmatically-determined policy and a current state of the payment processing unit.

A system for providing policy-driven payment processing, comprising:

• means for providing a plurality of payment-processing policies, each of the policies specifying how payment transactions for a payment method should be carried out;
• means for selecting, by a merchant that will use the policy-driven payment processing system, one or more of the provided policies;
• means for receiving business event notifications representing payment processing units;
• means for programmatically determining the selected policy that corresponds to each of the payment processing units represented by the received notifications;
• and
• means for applying each of the programmatically-determined policies to the corresponding payment processing units, thereby moving payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.

A computer program product for automated processing of payments, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

• computer-readable program code means for receiving a business event notification signifying that a payment processing unit has reached a particular business stage;
• computer-readable program code means for programmatically determining a payment-processing policy that has been selected as applying to this payment processing unit;
• and
• computer-readable program code means for programmatically determining zero or more actions to be carried out for this payment processing unit, according to the programmatically-determined policy and a current state of the payment processing unit.

A computer program product for providing policy-driven payment processing, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

• computer-readable program code means for providing a plurality of payment-processing policies, each of the policies specifying how payment transactions for a payment method should be carried out;
• computer-readable program code means for selecting, by a merchant that will use the policy-driven payment processing system, one or more of the provided policies;
• computer-readable program code means for receiving business event notifications representing payment processing units;
• computer-readable program code means for programmatically determining the selected policy that corresponds to each of the payment processing units represented by the received notifications;
• and
• computer-readable program code means for applying each of the programmaticallydetermined policies to the corresponding payment processing units, thereby moving payment for the payment processing unit toward completion.