Payment Switches for Open Networks
David K. Gifford, Lawrence C. Stewart, Andrew C. Payne, and
G. Winfield Treese
Open Market, Inc.
Abstract
We describe the first operational Internet payment switch that
provides real-time authorization suitable for direct use by merchant
servers. A payment switch is a server that creates digital
representations of conventional financial instruments, and forwards
authentic payment orders on these instruments to their corresponding
conventional financial networks and institutions. Our payment switch
provides support for time-based and item-based pricing, implements
switch based authorization and settlement aggregation for
micro-payments, and includes an extensive customer support system in
order to provide a high level of customer confidence in electronic
commerce. Fraud control is based on a transaction-specific
multi-level security model that accommodates existing Internet
browsers. Multiple authentication technologies are applied to every
transaction.
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