Mobile payment and identity verification system
View Patent ↗Techniques are disclosed relating to facilitating transactions via mobile devices. In one embodiment, an account that is linked to a mobile telephone number of a mobile device is established at a computer system. In such an embodiment, the account permits a user to make and receive payments, and is not accessible without using the mobile device. In some embodiments, the account is established without setting up a username and password. In one embodiment, a request is sent from a payment application of the mobile device to the computer system. In some embodiments, the payment application is made active on the mobile device in response to a user input within a different application running on the mobile device. After the payment application is active, a purchase is confirmed within the payment application such that the request is sent responsive to the confirming and without authenticating the user within the payment application.
1. A method, comprising:
establishing, at a computer system, a mobile payment account associated with a mobile telephone number of a mobile device, wherein the mobile payment account is operable to make and receive payments, and wherein the mobile payment account is only accessible on the mobile device;
initiating, at the computer system, a request to make or receive a payment via the mobile payment account; and
receiving a generated barcode comprising embedded instructions for making a payment to a payee.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the mobile payment account is established without setting up a username and password.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer system does not use email to communicate regarding the mobile payment account.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving an indication that a previous mobile payment account already exists for the mobile telephone number and the previous mobile payment account is overwritten to establish the mobile payment account such that the mobile telephone number is associated with only a single mobile payment account.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein establishing the mobile payment account comprises establishing a personal identification number (PIN).
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein a mobile payment application is executable on the mobile device to require entry of the PIN for payment transactions that satisfy a set of user-specified criteria.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the mobile payment account is for a mobile payment system, wherein the method further comprises:
responding to an invitation to establish a mobile payment account with the mobile payment system.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the invitation is from a social networking service.
9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing additional data with the mobile payment account, wherein the additional data is used to assess fraud risk.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the additional data comprises GPS data.
11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the additional data indicates contacts of a user.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the barcode is scannable by a mobile device of the payee to determine the instructions embedded in the barcode, wherein the mobile device of the payee is configured to implement the embedded instructions in order to receive the payment.