System and method for managing gift credits for corporate benefits and offers
A system transfers money to a recipient's payment card account, without requiring an additional payment card or without acquiring a recipient's payment card or account information. A recipient registers a payment account with a service provider. A system receives an identification, generated from an entity such as a business or a person, of the recipient and information associated with an electronic notice to be transmitted to a device associated with the recipient. The system transmits the notice (advertisement or offer) to the device, the notice being associated with the recipient payment account and being transmitted prior to the recipient buying product or service associated with the notice using the recipient payment account. The notice can be associated with a network merchant category or network merchant ID for managing a gift credit identified in the notice. The system receives an indication of a purchase associated with the notice and completed using the recipient payment account and applies the gift credit.
1. A method comprising:
receiving a registration of a recipient payment account at a service provider, the recipient payment account being associated with a recipient, the recipient payment account being registered with the service provider prior to the receiving of the identification;
receiving, from a company, an identification of the recipient and a spending category;
generating, via a control engine of the service provider, a policy comprising a benefit credit and the spending category, wherein the policy is at least in part defined by the company and wherein the policy is linked to the recipient payment account;
transmitting, by the control engine, an electronic notice to a recipient device, the electronic notice referencing the policy and being linked to the recipient payment account;
monitoring, via an intelligent network monitoring engine, purchasing transactions made using the recipient payment account via a payment processing system for a qualified purchase according to the policy; and
based on the qualified purchase, applying, by the control engine, the benefit credit to the recipient payment account according to the policy.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the recipient payment account is one of a debit account, a financial account, and a credit account.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the benefit credit comprises one of a gift credit, an employee compensation credit, a bonus credit, and a promotion credit.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spending category comprises at least one of a general level identification of a merchant or a network merchant category.
5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an initial amount of money from an entity account associated with the company into a service provider account, wherein the benefit credit is drawn from the initial amount of money.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the benefit credit is transferred to the recipient payment account and is determined by comparing an initial amount of money received from the company to a purchase amount associated with the qualified purchase.
7. The method of claim 6 , wherein if the purchase amount is less than the initial amount of money, then the benefit credit transferred to the recipient payment account is a full amount of the qualified purchase, and wherein if the purchase amount is more than the initial amount of money, then the benefit credit transferred is the initial amount of money.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
charging the recipient payment account for the qualified purchase; and
reimbursing the recipient payment account when the qualified purchase appears on a transaction history of the recipient payment account.
9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
charging a percentage of an initial amount of money provided by the company as a service fee for using the service provider.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein one of the company, the recipient and a third party is charged the percentage of the initial amount of money.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spending category comprises one of an individual point of sale, a chain of stores, and a plurality of businesses in a same industry.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein a third party pays at least a portion of an initial amount of money which funds the benefit credit.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the recipient is an employee of the company.
14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the benefit credit comprises a component of employee compensation for the employee.
15. A benefit credit service provider comprising:
a processor of a computer device;
an intelligence network monitoring module;
a control engine; and
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by the processor of the computing device, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
receiving a registration of a recipient payment account, the recipient payment account being associated with a recipient;
receiving, from a company, an identification of the recipient and a spending category, the recipient payment account being registered with the benefit credit service provider prior to the receiving of the identification;
generating, via the control engine, a policy comprising a benefit credit and the spending category, wherein the policy is at least in part defined by the company and wherein the policy is linked to the recipient payment account;
transmitting, by the control engine, an electronic notice to a recipient device, the electronic notice referencing the policy and being linked to the recipient payment account;
monitoring, via the intelligent network monitoring module, purchasing transactions made using the recipient payment account via a payment processing system for a qualified purchase according to the policy; and
based on the qualified purchase, applying, by the control engine, the benefit credit.
16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the recipient is an employee of the company.
17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the benefit credit comprises a component of employee compensation for the employee.
18. The system of claim 15 , wherein the benefit credit comprises one of a gift credit, an employee compensation credit, a bonus credit, and a promotion credit.
19. The system of claim 15 , wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium stores additional instructions which, when executed by the processor of the computing device, cause the processor to perform operations further comprising:
receiving an initial amount of money from an entity account associated with the company into a service provider account, wherein the benefit credit is drawn from the initial amount of money.
20. The system of claim 15 , wherein the spending category comprises at least one of a general category level identification of a merchant or a network merchant category.