Consumer commercial behavior modification through multiple merchant incentive program

A method for implementing a multi-provider rewards program wherein rewards are awarded for a series of transactions using an account in a transaction processing system wherein the transaction processing system includes at least one issuer, at least one acquirer, a plurality of resource providers and a transaction handler, the method comprising a plurality of steps each being performed by hardware executing software, wherein the steps include:

• providing rewards program business rules wherein the rewards program business rules require that a consumer perform transactions with each of a plurality of resource providers and specify rewards to be awarded upon the consumer performing at least a subset of the transactions associated with each of the plurality of resource providers wherein each of the transactions must be performed using a consumer account associated with the consumer;
• receiving transaction data whenever a transaction occurs using the consumer account;
• using the transaction data to determine when a consumer has performed the transactions with each of the plurality of resource providers;
• and
• when a consumer has performed the transactions required by the rules, identifying a reward for the consumer that performed the transactions.

An article of manufacture comprising a computer readable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for causing hardware executing the computer readable program code embodied in the computer readable medium to implement a multi-provider rewards program wherein rewards are awarded for a series of transactions with a plurality of different resource providers using a consumer account in a transaction processing system, wherein the transaction processing system includes at least one issuer, at least one acquirer, a plurality of resource providers and a transaction handler, wherein the computer readable program code embodied in the computer readable medium includes:

• computer readable program code means for causing a computer to receive transaction data whenever a transaction occurs using the consumer account;
• computer readable program code means for causing a computer to use the transaction data to determine when a consumer has performed specific transactions with each of a plurality of resource providers;
• and
• computer readable program code means for causing a computer, when a consumer has performed the specific transactions with each of the plurality of resource providers, to identify a reward for the consumer that performed the transactions.