Systems and methods to enable payments in the absence of a point of sale device

A payment processing computing device for processing a transaction between a consumer and a merchant, said payment processing computing device comprising a processor communicatively coupled to a consumer mobile device via an electronic communications network and communicatively coupled to a memory device, wherein said processor is programmed to:

• prior to generating an authorization request message, receive, from the consumer mobile device, a consumer alias, a transaction amount, consumer verification data, and merchant data associated with the merchant, the merchant data comprising an image of optical merchant identification information captured by an image capture component of the consumer mobile device and a geolocation of the merchant captured by a geolocation component of the consumer mobile device, wherein the image includes unencoded business-identifying information of the merchant;
• prior to generating the authorization request message, determine a merchant identifier of the merchant based on the received image and the received geolocation;
• retrieve, from the memory device, information identifying an acquiring bank associated with the determined merchant identifier, wherein the merchant has an established account with the acquiring bank;
• retrieve, from the memory device, an account number based on the consumer alias and the consumer verification data, the account number associated with the consumer;
• generate, without receiving any information from a point of sale (POS) device associated with the merchant, the authorization request message including the account number, the transaction amount, and the determined merchant identifier;
• transmit the authorization request message over a payment network to an issuer bank associated with the consumer, wherein the merchant has no relationship with the issuer bank;
• transmit the authorization request message to the acquirer bank associated with the merchant;
• and
• settle the transaction between the issuer bank and the merchant via the acquirer bank.

A computer-implemented method for processing a transaction between a merchant and a consumer, said method implemented using a payment processing computing device including a processor communicatively coupled to a consumer mobile device via an electronic communications network and communicatively coupled to a memory device, said method comprising steps performed by the processor of:

• prior to generating an authorization request message, receiving, from the consumer mobile device, a consumer alias, a transaction amount, consumer verification data, and merchant data associated with the merchant, the merchant data comprising an image of optical merchant identification information captured by an image capture component of the consumer mobile device and a geolocation of the merchant captured by a geolocation component of the consumer mobile device, wherein the image includes unencoded business-identifying information of the merchant;
• prior to generating the authorization request message, determining a merchant identifier of the merchant based on the received image and the received geolocation;
• retrieving, from the memory device, information identifying an acquiring bank associated with the determined merchant identifier, wherein the merchant has an established account with the acquiring bank;
• retrieving, from the memory device, an account number based on the consumer alias and the consumer verification data, the account number associated with the consumer;
• generating, without receiving any information from a point of sale (POS) device associated with the merchant, the authorization request message including the account number, the transaction amount, and the determined merchant identifier;
• transmitting the authorization request message over a payment network to an issuer bank associated with the consumer, wherein the merchant has no relationship with the issuer bank;
• transmitting the authorization request message to the acquirer bank associated with the merchant;
• and
• settling the transaction between the issuer bank and the merchant via the acquirer bank.

At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon, wherein when executed by a payment processing computing device including a processor communicatively coupled to a consumer mobile device via an electronic communications network and communicatively coupled to a memory device, the computer-executable instructions cause the processor to:

• prior to generating an authorization request message, receive, from the consumer mobile device, a consumer alias, a transaction amount, consumer verification data, and merchant data associated with a merchant, the merchant data comprising an image of optical merchant identification information captured by an image capture component of the consumer mobile device and a geolocation of the merchant captured by a geolocation component of the consumer mobile device, wherein the image includes unencoded business-identifying information of the merchant;
• prior to generating the authorization request message, determine a merchant identifier of the merchant based on the received image and the received geolocation;
• retrieve, from the memory device, information identifying an acquiring bank associated with the determined merchant identifier, wherein the merchant has an established account with the acquiring bank;
• retrieve, from the memory device, an account number based on the consumer alias and the consumer verification data, the account number associated with a consumer;
• generate, without receiving any information from a point of sale (POS) device associated with the merchant, the authorization request message including the account number, the transaction amount, and the determined merchant identifier;
• transmit the authorization request message over a payment network to an issuer bank associated with the consumer, wherein the merchant has no relationship with the issuer bank;
• transmit the authorization request message to the acquirer bank associated with the merchant;
• and
• settle the transaction between the issuer bank and the merchant via the acquirer bank.