Enabling a merchant's storefront POS (point of sale) system to accept a payment transaction verified by SMS messaging with buyer's mobile phone

A mobile-payment authorizing system comprising:

• a user database having user records for customers, wherein a user record for a customer comprises a mobile device number that uniquely identifies the customer's mobile device, and a payment record locator for locating payment information for the customer;
• a merchant gateway for receiving merchant requests from Point-Of-Sale endpoints at a merchant,
• wherein the merchant requests include the mobile device number for the customer that the customer provides to the merchant, and an amount of a purchase by the customer;
• a mobile messaging gateway,
• wherein said mobile messaging gateway sends a first mobile message to the customer's mobile device over a mobile network using the mobile device number that uniquely identifies the customer's mobile device,
• wherein said mobile messaging gateway receives a second mobile message from the customer's mobile device in response to the first mobile message;
• an authorization gateway,
• wherein said authorization gateway sends an authorization request to a financial authorization network when the second mobile message is received and verified,
• wherein the authorization request includes an identifier of the merchant and the payment information located for the customer using the payment record locator,
• wherein the authorization gateway receives a completed message from the financial authorization network, when payment is authorized;
• a plurality of broker server instances,
• wherein each broker server instance among said plurality of broker server instances processes a transaction,
• wherein said each broker server instance receives a merchant request from a point-of-sale endpoint,
• wherein said each broker server instance extracts an extracted mobile device number from the merchant request,
• wherein said each broker server instance uses the mobile device number to locate a matching customer record in the user database,
• wherein said each broker server instance activates the mobile messaging gateway to send the first mobile message to the extracted mobile device number,
• wherein said each broker server instance verifies the second mobile message, activating the authorization gateway to send the authorization request,
• wherein said each broker server instance activates the merchant gateway to send a complete transaction message to the point-of-sale endpoint in response to the completed message,
• wherein transactions are processed by verifying the second mobile message received from the customer's mobile device in reply to the first mobile message;
• wherein the user record in the user database further comprises an approval personal-identification-number known by the customer;
• wherein the second mobile message further comprises the approval personal-identification-number entered by the customer on the customer's mobile device;
• an approval personal-identification-number verifier,
• wherein said approval personal-identification-number verifier matches the approval personal-identification-number from the second mobile message with the approval personal-identification-number stored in the user record in the user database,
• wherein the customer approves the transaction by inserting the approval personal-identification-number into the second mobile message;
• wherein the first mobile message comprises a short message service text message sent to customer's mobile device using the mobile device number read from the user record in the user database;
• wherein the second mobile message comprises a short message service text message that the customer sends in reply to the first mobile message,
• wherein the second mobile message comprises the approval personal-identification-number entered by the customer on the customer's mobile device.