Byz
Tek was founded in 2004 by two engineers with the goal of addressing
all of the above challenges by providing financial services companies
with innovative secure transaction methodologies that, when implemented,
not only prevent fraudulent remote commercial transactions of all
types (on-line and off-line), but that also enable companies to
utilize the actual fraud prevention process to offer financial (or
other) products and/or services to its customers, including services
that meet the customers’ actual specific needs. Byz Tek’s
secondary goal was to ensure that its solutions did not suffer from
the above-described disadvantages of previously proposed approaches.
In addition, Byz Tek strived to provide solutions that were not
only platform independent, but that would work in conjunction with
any other existing and future fraud prevention technologies.
The patent-pending
secure transaction technologies developed by Byz Tek in response
to the above goals (hereinafter “Byz Tek’s Secure Transaction
technologies” or “BTST technologies”), advantageously
address both of the major security challenges currently facing remote
commercial transactions: (1) theft of CFD, and (2) verification
that the individual placing a remote order using particular CFD,
is in fact the person to whom the CFD belongs, or who has otherwise
been authorized to use the CFD. Additionally, BTST technologies
also provide very desirable targeted marketing tools to financial
service providers (FSPs).
BTST
technologies accomplish the above goals by: (1) ensuring that the
complete CFD is never transmitted to a remote merchant, and in fact
is not even necessary for order placement, and (2) by separating
the order process into the stages of order placement and order verification,
where the verification of the order is made by the customer’s
FSP – a party that has always been in possession of the customer’s
CFD. Additionally, as noted above, BTST technologies also provide
FSPs with the opportunity to offer one or more products and/or services
to the customer during the order verification process, such as certain
specific context-sensitive services when customers are in dire need
thereof (e.g., credit line increases, loans, etc.).
Advantageously,
all BTST technologies function equally well for interactive electronic
(e.g., on-line) orders, telephone orders, mobile commerce orders,
facsimile orders, electronic mail orders, and mail-order orders.
In summary, BTST technologies enable secure commercial order transactions
between customers and merchants, through existing remote communication
means (including the Internet, telephone, facsimile, and even postal
mail order). BTST technologies ensure that a customer’s entire
CFD is never transmitted to a remote merchant, by keeping that CFD
proprietary to the customer’s exiting FSP, with which the
customer has an established financial account, that has previously
issued a CDC card product (e.g., credit card, debit card, check
card, etc.) to the customer, with which the CFD is associated, and
that is capable or transmitting (or authorizing transmission of),
payments to a merchant’s financial account.
In the
various embodiments of BTST technologies, when an order is placed
with a remote merchant, the customer provides, to the merchant,
a partial CFD sufficient, along with additional data also provided
as part of the order, to identify the customer’s FSP to the
merchant, and to also identify the customer to the FSP. The merchant
then provides the partial CFD, along with at least partial order
data, to the FSP, and also provides order confirmation data to the
customer. The specific manner in which the order and the partial
CFD are transmitted from the customer to the merchant (i.e., the
order component of the novel system) depends on the particular embodiment
of BTST technologies, while the financial operations performed between
the merchant and the FSP (and related parties) remain substantially
identical for the different inventive embodiments of BTST technologies.
This architecture ensures that BTST technologies readily co-exist
with all current and future financial transaction processing infrastructures.
Once
the FSP receives the order data from the merchant along with information
identifying the customer, a novel order verification process takes
place that enables authorization, by the customer, of the order
through contact between the customer and the FSP. For example, in
one embodiment, contact to authenticate the order is initiated by
the customer who contacts their FSP, while in another embodiment;
the FSP contacts the customer, when the order data along with the
partial CFD have been received from the merchant. The exact manner
in which the order verification process occurs is preferably pre-arranged
between the customer and their FSP. Once the order is verified,
the FSP proceeds with payment authorization to the merchant in a
conventional manner.
As noted
above, BTST technologies also provide the FSP with the ability to
offer additional services and/or products to the customer during
the novel order verification process, related, or unrelated to,
the transaction being verified. For example, if a particular order
exceeds the customer’s credit limit, instead of declining
the order, the FSP can offer a credit line increase to the customer
during the order verification process, or allow the customer to
pay their bill immediately to free up necessary funds.
To address
the challenge of fraudulent activities that may be perpetrated by
persons who misuse CDC card products that were properly issued to
them by financial account holders (i.e., the parties responsible
for the financial account to which the CDC card products are linked),
BTST technologies function in conjunction with customized multi-tiered
control and selective administration of secure commercial order
transactions by providing financial account holders with the capability
of attaching order verification triggers to custom parameters for
utilization of their financial account by third parties authorized
to engage in commercial transactions that utilize CDC card products
drawing payments from the financial account.
While
these particular BTST technologies are described above as being
utilized in a corporate or similar organizational setting, they
offer great advantages for consumers as well (i.e. for controlling
the spending of family members, and especially teenagers). For example,
CFAU rules may be defined for a credit card given to a college-bound
teenager with specific rules such as order verification being triggered
by purchase of items other than food, clothing, and books, or exceeding
a $200 spending threshold. Thus, in addition to the other advantages
described above, the BTST technologies provide significant protection
from fraud and/or misappropriation of funds by individuals who have
access to financial accounts where the BTST account utilization
control tools are provided to the account administrator.
Glossary:
“CFD” – Confidential Financial Data
“CDC card” – Credit / Debit / Charge Card
“FSP” – Financial Service Provider
“CFAU rules” - Customized Financial Account Utilization
rules
“BTST technologies” - Byz Tek’s Secure Transaction
technologies |
