Reduction of transaction fraud through the use of automatic centralized signature/sign verification combined with credit and fraud scoring during real-time payment card authorization processes

1) A payment authorization system comprising:

• a) A first computer system and software comprising:
• i) an electronic payment processing system incorporating software;
• a method for capturing data from the purchaser's payment account;
• a method for capturing purchase transaction data;
• and a method of capturing an electronic copy of a purchaser's signature;
• ii) the capture of purchaser's signature data from an electronic signature entry system;
• the generation of signature feature set data from said purchaser's signature data;
• iii) the capture of said purchaser's payment account data, including said payment account number;
• iv) the capture of transaction data, including transaction amount and merchant identifier;
• v) the transmission of the said signature feature set data, said account data and said transaction data to said purchaser's payment account issuing bank as a purchase authorization request;
• vi) and the receipt from said purchaser's payment account issuing bank of the result of said purchase authorization request
• b) a second computer system and software located at said purchaser's payment account issuing bank location that receives said purchase authorization request and
• i) automatically separates out said signature feature set data, said account data, and said transaction data into its constituent components;
• ii) automatically performs a signature match calculation by comparing said purchaser's signature feature set data with a previously stored signature template created from previous signature feature data sets from said purchaser, and generates one or more signature feature set data mismatch scores from said match calculation that is indicative of the likelihood that the signature is either authentic or fraudulent;
• iii) automatically analyzes said transaction data and said account data with pattern recognition software and/or fraud database analyses to identify high fraud risk transactions, and uses these analyses to generate one or more transaction fraud risk scores associated with the purchase request;
• iv) automatically screens account data to identify high credit risk transactions, including but not limited to verifying that said purchaser's payment account is in good standing and has sufficient purchasing capacity to approve said transaction amount;
• v) automatically approves said purchase authorization request responsive to:
• (1) said signature feature set data mismatch score being within a pre-determined acceptable range that would suggest the signature is authentic;
• (2) said transaction fraud risk score being within a pre-determined acceptable range that would suggest the transaction is not fraudulent;
• and
• (3) said account being in good standing and with sufficient purchasing capacity to support the purchase request;
• vi) either automatically or after human review, declines said purchase authorization request responsive to one or more of the following
• (1) said signature feature set data mismatch score being outside of a pre-determined acceptable range that would suggest the signature may be a forgery;
• (2) said transaction fraud risk score being outside of a pre-determined acceptable range that would suggest the transaction may be fraudulent;
• or
• (3) said account not being in good standing;
• (4) said account having insufficient purchasing capacity to support the purchase request;
• vii) automatically transmits said purchase authorization request result to said first computer system