Verification and authentication of optical machine-readable codes for payment processing

A method comprising:

• reading, by a user terminal comprising a processing circuit, an optical machine-readable code representative of a payment processing account;
• wirelessly transmitting, by the user terminal, an authorization request message containing code data representing the optical machine-readable code to a merchant device;
• wirelessly receiving, by the user terminal, a response message from the merchant device, the response message containing response data representing a permission to use the payment processing account for a transaction;
• and
• determining, by the user terminal based on the response data, whether the user terminal has permission to transmit a transaction request message to a remote payment processing system via a network for authorizing a deposit of funds into the payment processing account.

A merchant device comprising:

• a processing circuit;
• a wireless communication interface;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processing circuit, the memory comprising machine-readable instructions that, when executed by the processing circuit:
• cause the processing circuit to wirelessly receive a request message from a user terminal via the wireless communication interface, the request message containing code data representing an optical machine-readable code that has been read by the user terminal, the optical machine-readable code representative of a payment processing account;
• cause the processing circuit to determine, based on the code data, whether the payment processing account represented by the optical machine-readable code is an authorized payment processing account;
• and
• cause the processing circuit to wirelessly transmit, based on the determining, a response message to the user terminal via the wireless communication interface indicative of whether the user terminal is permitted to use the payment processing account for a transaction.