WO1998040834A1

WO1998040834A1 - Method and system for consumption-related financial transaction

Info

Publication number: WO1998040834A1
Application number: PCT/FR1998/000445
Authority: WO
Inventors: Mohamed Lamine Guiga; Claude Roizin
Original assignee: E & A (Epargne & Achats)
Priority date: 1997-03-07
Filing date: 1998-03-06
Publication date: 1998-09-17
Also published as: FR2760549A1; FR2760549B1

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for consumption-related financial transaction, comprising for the payment for goods or services by a consumer to a commercial entity, the determination of a price discount actually paid by this consumer and the transfer of this discount collected by this commercial entity to the savings account opened in said consumer's name in a financial institution. This method enables saving while consuming. The invention is useful in particular for developing customer loyalty.

Description

"FINANCIAL TRANSACTION PROCESS AND SYSTEM RELATED TO

CONSUMPTION"

The present invention relates to a financial transaction method linked to consumption. It also relates to a system for its implementation.

The loyalty of consumers and customers is for many businesses and businesses an essential objective in increasingly competitive economic environments. There are already many loyalty concepts, most of which use loyalty cards which can be manual or, increasingly, magnetic and / or microprocessor cards.

A first widespread loyalty concept consists in providing the customer with a loyalty card having reached a cumulative amount of purchases of goods or services a bonus or a bonus in the form of vouchers or discounts on future acquisitions. A second loyalty concept which is experiencing significant growth consists in accumulating points directly determined according to the volume of purchases made with a specific means of payment such as a credit card, the credit of points thus accumulated by the holder opening it up access to a set of preferential offers concerning services such as plane tickets or hotel nights.

In current loyalty concepts, the reward offered to customers in exchange for their loyalty is expressed in terms of preferential access to more consumption, whether in the form of privileged offers or vouchers which lead to an overall increase in the consumption of these customers and therefore a growth in indirect taxes, such as Value Added Tax. More generally, beyond the loyalty imperatives, it is a question of providing customers with motivations and incentives to consume which can be based on more effective sources than the traditional mechanisms of immediate discounts, gift points and vouchers. .

Document US 5,202,826 discloses a transaction process aimed at constituting for each consumer an accumulation of discounts while reducing the current cash flow of merchants, the latter retaining control of the discount rate granted to consumers. The accumulated sums are returned to consumers on predetermined dates, for example their birthday, in the form of checks or cash to be withdrawn from a distributor.

Document US 5,513,102 discloses a method of encouraging the use of a credit card, implementing reward coupons giving the right to a lottery ticket. Document US 5,537,314 discloses a multi-level financial incentive system designed to collect bonuses or discounts granted to consumers and to provide a set of information and documents on consumer discount and bonus accounts.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a financial transaction method aimed at gaining the loyalty of customers and consumers which does not necessarily translate into induced consumption in the short term but on the contrary provides them with advantages in the medium and long term in exchange for their loyalty.

This objective is achieved with a financial transaction process linked to consumption, comprising: - for each payment of goods or services by a consumer to a commercial entity, a determination of a discount on the price actually paid by that consumer, this discount being collected by said commercial entity, and a remote collection to a management center for 'information relating to payments made and discounts corresponding to these payments, storage and processing of this payment and delivery information. According to the invention, the transaction method further comprises a transfer of each discount received by each commercial entity on behalf of a consumer, to a savings account opened in the name of said consumer in a financial institution. Thus, with the method according to the invention, customers save by consuming. In the current economic context, there is indeed a strong demand from customers and consumers for savings with low taxation or opening up to tax advantages. All the parties concerned will find their account with the implementation of the method according to the invention.

Merchants can expect loyalty from consumers who are encouraged to consume in shops offering them this savings opportunity. The discounts they will actually charge on the prices of goods or services offered to customers represent in any case a frequent and sometimes unavoidable commercial practice.

Consumers will find with the method according to the invention an effective, simple and relatively painless means of saving while consuming. The automatic nature of savings operations should provide some satisfaction and security for the consumer, who is then all the more encouraged to consume because he knows that this will contribute to increasing his savings. The financial institutions receiving consumer savings will benefit with the process according to the invention from an efficient, systematic and large-scale collection tool. According to a particular form of implementation of the invention, in this method, which further comprises interbank clearing operations carried out from the management center for the benefit of the banking institutions of said commercial entities, the discount information is processed to detect , for each couple (consumer, commercial entity) a cumulative discount amount greater than or equal to a predetermined transfer threshold, and when such a transfer threshold is reached for a couple (consumer, commercial entity), the management center orders a transfer of the accumulated discounts from an account of the commercial entity concerned to a savings account opened in the name of the consumer concerned in a financial institution. _ With this process, it becomes viable to carry out a considerable number of transactions, each involving generally modest amounts. Indeed, until now, it was not economically possible to carry out such a coupling between specific acts of consumption of goods or services and capitalization on financial products, the costs induced by operation necessarily reserving this coupling to acquisitions of a high unit amount.

With the method according to the invention, it becomes possible to propose a loyalty concept providing the consumer adhering to this concept with a savings mechanism on financial products designed for their advantageous taxation. In addition, while the purchase of life insurance usually requires a minimum deposit, with the process according to the invention, any holder of a loyalty card can easily access a life insurance product without this barrier of a minimum deposit.

The process according to the invention is intrinsically multi-brand and multi-business. The discount rate must be variable and individualized by business and possibly by category of good or service.

In the most common case where the payment method is a microprocessor card, the method according to the invention then benefits from the same security levels as the other financial transaction methods using the electronic payment method.

In practical embodiments of the invention, transfers of accumulated discounts are further conditioned by time criteria, in particular a minimum accumulation period.

Transfers of cumulative discounts of an amount greater than the transfer threshold may also be made at predetermined transfer times. According to a particular embodiment of the invention, for each commercial entity, transfers of the cumulative discounts of an amount greater than the transfer threshold are made in a grouped manner towards the financial institution. These grouped transfers can also be made when the total amount of these transfers exceeds an overall transfer threshold.

It can be provided that the discounts are calculated locally at the points of sale and stored before being collected, and that the cumulative discounts are stored in memory in the means of payment.

However, it can also be envisaged that the discounts be calculated at the level of the management center after collecting payment information. According to another aspect of the invention, there is proposed a financial transaction system implementing the method according to the invention, comprising a management center comprising: - means for remotely collecting payment information from payment terminals and discount corresponding to purchase operations carried out with specific means of payment,

- means for storing and processing this settlement and remittance information, means for ordering interbank clearing, characterized in that the means for processing settlement and remittance information are arranged to detect for each couple (carrier, entity cumulative discount amounts greater than or equal to a predetermined transfer threshold, and in that it further comprises means for ordering a transfer of the cumulative discounts thus detected from an account of the commercial entity concerned to an open account for the bearer concerned in a financial institution.

The specific means of payment, for example a microprocessor card or any other equivalent means, can be arranged to store information on. the amount of cumulative discounts held by the bearer of said means of payment.

The payment terminals are for example arranged to calculate, for each payment made by a customer with the specific means of payment, a discount according to a predetermined calculation rule.

Other features and advantages of the invention will appear in the description below. In the appended drawings given by way of nonlimiting examples: FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the essential components of a financial transaction system according to the invention; and FIG. 2 illustrates the essential steps of the method according to the invention.

We will now describe an exemplary embodiment of a financial transaction system according to the invention, with reference to FIG. 1.

The financial transaction system 1 according to the invention is part of existing systems processing electronic payments from points of sale PV1, PVm equipped with payment terminals TPI, TPm and readers LC1, LCm of memory cards or with microprocessor Eai, EAj. These payment terminals TPI, TPm are connected to a site SG for managing electronic payments via a communication network RT, which may for example be the switched telephone network or any other public or private network. The management center SG comprises telecollection equipment TL responsible for collecting all of the transaction data sent by the payment terminals TPI, TPm, storage units SP of all the transaction data, processing means MT of these data, and OT means for transmitting transfer and clearing orders to banks BCl, BCi, BCn and to a financial institution IF responsible for collecting the discounts obtained by the holders and capitalizing them on financial products benefiting to the extent the possibility of favorable taxation. The SG management center provides the following functionalities:

- remote collection of payment terminals,

- downloading of parameters from payment terminals, - management and use of customer and loyalty data,

- the marketing operation of the database, with in particular the creation of files with criteria, - the management of merchant accounts and bearer accounts,

- transmission of transactions with banks,

- liaison with financial organizations, for example in the context of consumer credit, - telephone assistance, and

- customer information via Minitel, Internet or by voice server.

We will now describe the essential steps of the financial transaction process, with reference to FIG. 2.

When the holder of an EA loyalty card uses this card for the payment of a purchase of a good or service and this card is inserted in the LC card reader of a point of sale or at home of the bearer, the conventional operations TC of authentication, identification and security control of the card are carried out at an initial instant tA and the payment terminal validates the transaction by storing information ID identifying the transaction and the bearer and MR of transaction amount. From this information, a CR operation to calculate a discount corresponding to this transaction is carried out according to a more or less complex calculation rule depending on the amount of the purchase, the nature of this purchase or the seniority of the bearer in this loyalty program, either locally at the terminal, or remotely at the management center after interrogation thereof by the payment terminal. The MR amount of the discount granted by the merchant or the commercial entity is preferably registered in storage means of the EA loyalty card, thus enabling the holder of this card to be able to know the cumulative amount of discounts. It should be noted that the merchant himself holds a microprocessor card enabling the payment terminal to be initialized, unlocking exceptional discounts and carrying out any operation requiring exceptional validation. The payment terminal TP stores a set of transactions over a given period of time, for example a day, and the transaction data thus stored locally are transferred (TT) at a predetermined instant (tT) or at the request of the management center SG which thus receives by telecollection sets S (ID, MA, MR) of information from a set of points of sale and payment terminals. This information includes identification data, transaction amount data, and discount amount data for each transaction. The management center SG then processes this remotely collected data, issues compensation orders OC for the amounts MA of the transactions in favor of the banks BC of the merchants concerned by these transactions and feeds a database BD grouping together for each holder all of the discounts RC1 , RC2, RCj granted by each merchant participating in the loyalty program.

For each holder participating in the program, the cumulative amounts of MRC discounts made by each merchant are regularly compared to a transfer threshold. When this transfer threshold is detected (TS), the management center SG launches an order to transfer the cumulative discounts OVR (Ci) to the bank BC of the merchant concerned in favor of the financial institution IF which manages the financial products supports savings generated for each holder by the accumulated discounts. When this financial institution receives from the bank concerned a cumulative remittance transfer TR (Ci) for the benefit of a holder Ci, this cumulative discount is charged to the account CR (Ci) of this holder, which can be an insurance account life, a savings account or a mutual fund. Each holder periodically receives information from the financial institution on the status of their loyalty account. It is also possible for him to be able to obtain real-time information on the cumulative amount of discounts acquired by reading this information on the loyalty card using suitable reading equipment now available.

Many variants of processing financial information and transfer orders can be envisaged in the context of the present invention. Thus, in the case of a multi-store card, the management center can launch an order to transfer cumulative discounts to the benefit of a given holder from a certain amount of a predetermined cumulative amount regardless of the respective amount of discounts granted by each merchant to this holder. Conversely, the amount of rebate per merchant can be considered as the essential criterion to trigger an effective transfer of the accumulated discounts to the financial institution. For the calculation of discounts, the amount excluding tax may or may not be used as the basis for calculating discounts. The calculation rules can be proportional, progressive or more complex depending on the commercial strategy of the commercial entities implementing the system according to the invention.

It should be noted that the transaction system according to the invention does not require modification of the existing material equipment, whether it be the payment terminals, management sites or IT equipment for banks and financial institutions. However, it is possible to envisage distributing dedicated payment terminals receiving downloaded software.

Each merchant or distribution group that wishes to implement the process according to the invention contractually commits to a minimum discount or rebate rate which it will grant by type of product and / or by type of customer. It receives a dedicated payment terminal, a personalization memory card and membership forms for the loyalty program. Advantageously, provision can be made for customers to join the loyalty program implementing the method according to the invention to be carried out directly at the points of sale adhering to this program, or else by any other means of communication, such as Minitel or Internet.

It should be noted that the loyalty card can be associated with a credit having various characteristics, in particular: a deferred payment, a payment in x times, or a consumer credit.

Several loyalty programs can be managed concurrently, for example, an accumulation of points, an accumulation of discounts on an account or an accumulation of number of purchases.

Of course, the invention is not limited to the examples which have just been described and numerous modifications can be made to these examples without departing from the scope of the invention. Thus, one can consider as a means of payment any payment device, manual or automatic, with or without storage memory. Communication networks between the management center, banking institutions and financial institutions can be of any kind, public or private, and can include Internet or Intranet networks.

The financial products concerned for the capitalization of the discounts granted to each client can be of any kind, in particular in the form of life insurance contracts, savings books, mutual funds, electronic wallets, according to the evolution of local laws and socio-economic contexts.

Claims

1. Financial transaction process linked to consumption, comprising: - for each payment of goods or services by a consumer to a commercial entity, a determination of a discount on the price actually paid by that consumer, this discount being received by said commercial entity, and a remote collection (TT) to a management center (SG) of information (MA, MR) relating to the payments made and the discounts corresponding to these regulations, storage and processing (TD) of this payment information and discount, characterized in that it further comprises a transfer of each discount received by each commercial entity on behalf of a consumer, on a savings account opened in the name of said consumer in a financial institution.

2. Method according to claim 1, implemented in a plurality of commercial entities, further comprising interbank clearing operations (CO) launched from the management center (SG) for the benefit of banking institutions (BCl, BCi, BCn, BC) of said commercial entities, characterized in that: the discount information (MR) is processed to detect (TS), for each couple [consumer-commercial entity] a cumulative discount amount greater than or equal to a transfer threshold predetermined, and when such a transfer threshold is reached for a commercial entity, the management center orders a transfer (TR (Ci)) of the accumulated discounts from an account of the commercial entity concerned to an account savings account open to the consumer concerned in a financial institution (FI).

3. Method according to claim 2, characterized in that the transfer orders of the accumulated discounts are further conditioned by time criteria, in particular a minimum duration of accumulation.

4. Method according to one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that the transfers of the accumulated discounts of an amount greater than the transfer threshold are also made at predetermined transfer times.

5. Method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that, for each commercial entity, transfers of the cumulative discounts of an amount greater than the transfer threshold are carried out in a grouped manner for a set of consumers to the institution financial.

6. Method according to claim 5, characterized in that these grouped transfers are made when the total amount of these transfers exceeds an overall transfer threshold.

7. Method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the discounts are calculated locally at points of sale (PV1, PVm) and stored before being collected.

8. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that the cumulative discounts are stored in memory in payment means (EA).

9. Method according to any one of the claims

1 to 6, characterized in that the discounts are calculated at the management center after collecting payment information.

10. Financial transaction system (1) implementing the method according to any one of the preceding claims, comprising a management center (SG) comprising: - means (TL) for collecting remotely from payment terminals (TPI) , TPm) payment and remittance information corresponding to purchasing operations concerned by this process,

- means (SP, MT) to store and process this payment and delivery information, and

- means (OT) for ordering interbank clearing.

11. System according to claim 10, characterized in that the means (MT) for processing payment and discount information are arranged to detect for each couple (consumer, commercial entity) cumulative discount amounts (MRC) greater than or equal at a predetermined transfer threshold, and in that it further comprises means for ordering a transfer (TR (Ci) of the accumulated discounts thus detected from an account of the commercial entity concerned to a savings account (CRI, CRj) open for the consumer concerned in a financial institution (FI).

12. System (1) according to claim 11, characterized in that specific means of payment (EA, Eai, EAj) are arranged to store information on the amount of cumulative discounts held by the consumer carrying said means of payment.

13. System according to one of claims 11 or 12, characterized in that payment terminals (TPI, TPm) are arranged to calculate, for each payment made by a carrier with specific payment means (EA, Eai, EA ), a discount according to a predetermined calculation rule.

14. System according to one of claims 11 to 13, characterized in that it is implemented for electronic transactions carried out on a communication network, in particular the Internet network.