Patent Issued for Advanced systems and methods for geographical card (USPTO 11132678): United Services Automobile Association

2021 OCT 20 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Billman, Bradly J. (Pocatello, ID, US), Hopkins, John C. (San Antonio, TX, US), Medina, III, Reynaldo (San Antonio, TX, US), Smith, Arthur Q. (Fredericksburg, TX, US), Voutour, Teddy (Helotes, TX, US), filed on January 25, 2019, was published online on September 28, 2021.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11132678 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The use of credit, debit and purchase cards has become increasingly popular in recent years, due in part to their widespread acceptance by vendors and their ease of use. However, that very popularity has led to issues such as identity theft and other types of fraud. Another issue is their ease of use makes it easy for the user to lose track of the purchases they have made, and by extension, the amount of their available credit or bank balances, which can result in a deleterious effect on budget management. Yet another issue is the lack of controls over what the card can be used for, as well as where and when.

“As an example, it is not uncommon for students to be provided a credit or debit card by their parents for making allowed purchases such food, fuel, school supplies, and other allowable expenses. However, the parent must rely on the student to not use the card for other purchases, such as clothing, entertainment, or perhaps other, less desirable purchases such as tobacco and alcoholic products. Furthermore, the parent must likewise rely on the student not to use the card outside of a predetermined geographical area, such as a neighborhood or a sector of a city. Yet another concern parents may have is that the student may attempt to use the card in a high crime area, thereby exposing themselves to danger. As another example, a company may issue a credit or purchase card to an employee to make approved purchases. Currently, administering and managing compliance to corporate purchase policies is typically after the fact, not before the employee attempts to make an unapproved purchase. As yet another example, consumers and businesspeople alike have difficulty adhering to a budget when using a card to make purchases, as it is difficult to determine in real-time how much they have already spent for a given budget category. Instead, they are often dismayed to discover they have overspent once they receive their statements.

“Known approaches to some of these issues exist, including limiting the use of a credit or debit card to certain geographical areas or time of day. Other known approaches provide item-level purchase detail, but these approaches are generally used for after-the-fact accounting and reconciliation purposes. Yet other approaches disallow the use of a card for different classes of merchants. However, such controls are typically not granular enough to be effective. As an example, clothing and alcoholic beverages can be purchased at many grocery stores.

“Furthermore, no known approach provides multi-factor and granular purchase controls related to geographical location, time of day, merchant type, product type, or purchase amount. Moreover, no known approach combines such granular purchase controls with notification of an attempted purchase of a disallowed or unapproved purchase item.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “A system, method, and computer-usable medium are disclosed for managing financial transactions by controlling the purchase of allowed and disallowed purchase items. As used herein, a disallowed purchase item is a good or service that fails to meet the financial funds use restrictions associated with the transaction control card account. In various embodiments, disallowed purchase items are defined through the use of disallowed purchase item data parameters, such as an individual or type of purchase item, an individual or type of merchant, geographical location, or the time, frequency, type or maximum amount of a transaction. In these and other embodiments, the disallowed purchase item data parameters are used individually or in combination.

“In various embodiments, a transaction control card is used to purchase a purchase item. Account information related to the transaction control card and purchase item data related to the purchase item is obtained and then processed to determine whether the purchase item is disallowed for purchase by any single, or combination of, disallowed purchase item data parameters. If so, then a request is generated and provided to the transaction control cardholder to authorize the purchase of the disallowed purchase item. The cardholder then modifies the disallowed purchase item data parameters associated with the disallowed purchase item to allow it to be processed as an allowed purchase item.

“The budget category associated with the allowed purchase item is determined and a budget category expenditure amount is generated by processing purchase item amounts corresponding to other purchase items associated with the budget category. A budget category variance amount is then generated by processing a budget category allowance amount and the budget category expenditure amount corresponding to the budget category. In various embodiments, the budget category allowance amount, the budget category expenditure amount, and the budget category variance amount are provided to the transaction control cardholder. In these and other embodiments, the budget category information is displayed to the cardholder within a user interface of a computing device. Merchant information, transaction control card account information, and the allowed purchase item data is then processed to generate a purchase transaction. The purchase transaction is processed to generate a payment transaction for an amount corresponding to the allowed purchase items, which is then transmitted to the merchant’s financial institution.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving purchase item data corresponding to a purchase transaction generated using a transaction control card account, configured as a card, and configured to accept allowed purchase items and reject disallowed purchase items based on cardholder account data, disallowed purchase item data, and budget category data; processing, using the disallowed purchase item data from the transaction control card account configured as the card, the purchase item data at a point-of-sale terminal or a remote transaction control system to identify the allowed purchase items and at least one disallowed purchase item, wherein the purchase item data is parsed using disallowed purchase item data, wherein the allowed purchase items are associated with allowed purchase item amounts; sending, to a device associated with the accountholder, a request for permission for a one-time modification to modify the disallowed purchase item data associated with the at least one disallowed purchase item to allow the at least one disallowed purchase item to be processed as an allowed purchase item; receiving, from the device of the accountholder, the permission for the one-time modification; and in response to the permission, allowing the at least one disallowed purchase item to be processed as the allowed purchase item.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the allowed purchase item data and the disallowed purchase item data are based on location, wherein the method further comprises determining whether the purchase item data should be processed locally at the point-of-sale terminal or at the remote transaction control system.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determining a location of the transaction; and identifying a terminal of the transaction based on a unique identifier at the terminal of the transaction and the location of the transaction.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the disallowed purchase item data include at least one of: a particular purchase item, a purchase item type, a geographical location, a transaction time period, a maximum amount, a transaction type, a transaction frequency, a particular merchant, or a merchant type.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: sending a budget category expenditure amount to the device associated with an accountholder of the card; and displaying the budget category expenditure amount on the device associated with the accountholder of the card.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: determining whether to create, delete or modify a budget category; in response to a determination to create, delete or modify the budget category, presenting the creation, deletion or modification to the budget category; and receiving a confirmation of the creation, deletion or modification to the budget category via a user gesture.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising: processing a unique purchase item identifier to associate the allowed purchase item data with a budget category identifier and the allowed purchase item amounts with a budget category allowance amount corresponding to a budget category identifier; processing the allowed purchase item data with the budget category identifier to generate a corresponding budget category expenditure amount comprising a sum of the allowed purchase item amounts corresponding to the budget category identifier; and comparing the corresponding budget category expenditure amount to the budget category allowance amount to generate a budget category variance amount.

“8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including a set of instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause a machine to perform operations comprising: receiving purchase item data corresponding to a purchase transaction generated using a transaction control card account, configured as a card, and configured to accept allowed purchase items and reject disallowed purchase items based on cardholder account data, disallowed purchase item data, and budget category data; processing, using the disallowed purchase item data from the transaction control card account configured as the card, the purchase item data at a point-of-sale terminal or a remote transaction control system to identify the allowed purchase items and at least one disallowed purchase item, wherein the purchase item data is parsed using disallowed purchase item data, wherein the allowed purchase items are associated with allowed purchase item amounts; sending, to a device associated with the accountholder, a request for permission for a one-time modification to modify the disallowed purchase item data associated with the at least one disallowed purchase item to allow the at least one disallowed purchase item to be processed as an allowed purchase item; receiving, from the device of the accountholder, the permission for the one-time modification; and in response to the permission, allowing the at least one disallowed purchase item to be processed as the allowed purchase item.

“9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the allowed purchase item data and the disallowed purchase item data are based on location, wherein the operations further comprise determining whether the purchase item data should be processed locally at the point-of-sale terminal or at the remote transaction control system.

“10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise: determining a location of the transaction; and identifying a terminal of the transaction based on a unique identifier at the terminal of the transaction and the location of the transaction.

“11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the disallowed purchase item data include at least one of: a particular purchase item, a purchase item type, a geographical location, a transaction time period, a maximum amount, a transaction type, a transaction frequency, a particular merchant, or a merchant type.

“12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise: sending a budget category expenditure amount to the device associated with an accountholder of the card; and displaying the budget category expenditure amount on the device associated with the accountholder of the card.

“13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise: determining whether to create, delete or modify a budget category; in response to a determination to create, delete or modify the budget category, presenting the creation, deletion or modification to the budget category; and receiving a confirmation of the creation, deletion or modification to the budget category via a user gesture.

“14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise: processing a unique purchase item identifier to associate the allowed purchase item data with a budget category identifier and the allowed purchase item amounts with a budget category allowance amount corresponding to a budget category identifier; processing the allowed purchase item data with the budget category identifier to generate a corresponding budget category expenditure amount comprising a sum of the allowed purchase item amounts corresponding to the budget category identifier; and comparing the corresponding budget category expenditure amount to the budget category allowance amount to generate a budget category variance amount.

“15. A transaction control system, comprising: one or more processors; and a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the transaction control system to perform a process comprising: receiving purchase item data corresponding to a purchase transaction generated using a transaction control card account, configured as a card, and configured to accept allowed purchase items and reject disallowed purchase items based on cardholder account data, disallowed purchase item data, and budget category data; processing, using the disallowed purchase item data from the transaction control card account configured as the card, the purchase item data at a point-of-sale terminal or a remote transaction control system to identify the allowed purchase items and at least one disallowed purchase item, wherein the purchase item data is parsed using disallowed purchase item data, wherein the allowed purchase items are associated with allowed purchase item amounts; sending, to a device associated with the accountholder, a request for permission for a one-time modification to modify the disallowed purchase item data associated with the at least one disallowed purchase item to allow the at least one disallowed purchase item to be processed as an allowed purchase item; receiving, from the device of the accountholder, the permission for the one-time modification; and in response to the permission, allowing the at least one disallowed purchase item to be processed as the allowed purchase item.

“16. The transaction control system of claim 15, wherein the allowed purchase item data and the disallowed purchase item data are based on location, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the transaction control system to determine whether the purchase item data should be processed locally at the point-of-sale terminal or at the remote transaction control system.

“17. The transaction control system of claim 15, wherein the process further comprises: determining a location of the transaction; and identifying a terminal of the transaction based on a unique identifier at the terminal of the transaction and the location of the transaction.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For additional information on this patent, see: Billman, Bradly J. Advanced systems and methods for geographical card. U.S. Patent Number 11132678, filed January 25, 2019, and published online on September 28, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11132678.PN.&OS=PN/11132678RS=PN/11132678

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