Securely Storing and Using Sensitive Information for Making Payments Using a Wallet Application

A method, implemented on a mobile device, for authorizing a transaction with payment information, comprising:

• generating a random private-public key pair including an asymmetric private key and an asymmetric public key;
• providing to a secure payment system the asymmetric public key;
• splitting the asymmetric private key into a remote key fragment and a local key fragment, wherein splitting is performed in accordance with a secret sharing scheme;
• sending the remote key fragment to the secure payment system;
• storing the local key fragment in the memory of the mobile device;
• responsive to receiving the second key fragment from the secure payment system:
• generating the asymmetric private key from the local key fragment and the remote key fragment;
• generating a cryptographically signed message using the asymmetric private key, wherein the cryptographically signed message authorizes the transaction;
• and
• providing, to the secure payment system, the cryptographically signed message.

A method, implemented on a secure payment system, for authorizing a transaction with payment information, comprising:

• receiving payment information;
• splitting, in accordance with a secret sharing scheme, the payment information into a set of fragments, wherein at least one subset of the set of fragments can be combined to recover the payment information;
• deleting the payment information;
• providing to each of a plurality of customer devices, a subset of the set of fragments;
• receiving fragments from at least one of the customer devices;
• and
• responsive to receiving the number of fragments required to recover the payment information, recovering the payment information and providing the payment information to a payment processor.

A method for securely processing a payment performed by a secure payment system, comprising:

• receiving, from a customer device, a first remote payment fragment combinable with a local payment fragment to generate payment information, the local payment fragment not being stored at the secure payment system;
• receiving a request from the customer device to process a transaction;
• receiving the local payment fragment from the customer device;
• generating a merchant fragment and a second remote payment fragment based on the local payment fragment and the remote fragment, the merchant fragment and the second remote payment fragment combinable to generate the payment information;
• sending the merchant fragment to a merchant;
• deleting the merchant fragment;
• receiving the merchant fragment from the merchant;
• and
• responsive to receiving the merchant fragment from the merchant, generating the payment information from the merchant fragment and the second remote payment fragment;
• and
• initiating a transaction using the payment information with a payment processor.