Policy-based payment transaction routing service for credit card payment processing

A processing device for routing a credit card payment transaction between a merchant terminal at a merchant, and acquirer servers each associated to one of multiple acquiring financial institutions of the merchant, the processing device comprising:

• a processor in communication with:
• the merchant terminal, and each one of the acquirer servers of the multiple acquiring financial institutions;
• and
• a memory device operatively coupled to the processor, the memory device storing instructions for implementing the processor to:
• receive an authorization request for the credit card payment transaction from the merchant terminal;
• determine an optimal transaction route for sending the authorization request to one of the acquirer servers, based on payment processing costs associated to routing the authorization request from the merchant terminal to each one of the acquirer servers;
• route the authorization request to the one of the acquirer servers to implement the optimal transaction route;
• receive, from the one of the acquirer servers, an authorization response for the authorization request;
• and
• forward the authorization response to the merchant terminal, to thereby complete the credit card payment transaction using the optimal transaction route.

A computer readable media storing coding for implementing a routing of a credit card payment transaction in a processing device, the processing device having an access to a communication network, the coding implementing the processing device to:

• receive, from a merchant, an authorization request for the credit card payment transaction;
• determine an optimal transaction route for sending the authorization request over the communication network, to one of multiple acquirer servers, each one of the multiple acquirer servers being associated to one of multiple acquiring financial institutions of the merchant, the determining being based on payment processing costs associated to routing the authorization request from the merchant to each one of the multiple acquirer servers;
• route the authorization request to the one of the multiple acquirer servers implementing the optimal transaction route;
• receive, from the one of the multiple acquirer servers, an authorization response for the authorization request;
• and
• display the authorization response at the merchant, to thereby notify the merchant of the authorization response.