Business Event Triggered, Policy-Driven Payment Management

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for using business events as triggers to drive payment processing for electronic commerce. As the business logic of a merchant's e-commerce software application reaches various stages that impact payment considerations, it issues a corresponding event notification. According to preferred embodiments, these event notifications are processed by a policy engine, which locates policy information or rules previously configured for that event. Actions are then carried out, based on the configured policy. The merchant e-commerce application is therefore shielded from the details of the underlying payment processing. New payment types can be provided, and existing payment types can be modified if necessary, by adding/modifying policies; the merchant's e-commerce application does not need to change. This event-driven model allows application developers to focus on creating software for the merchant's key business requirements, and makes it easier to maintain the software.

1 . A computer-implemented method of processing payments, comprising:
 receiving, at a policy engine from an executing application, a business event notification signifying that business processing of a transaction has reached a particular business stage;   programmatically determining, by the policy engine responsive to the receiving, which of a plurality of payment-processing policies was previously selected, by a merchant for which the business processing of the transaction is processed by the executing application, to specify how to process a payment when using a payment method that is associated with this transaction, wherein:
 each of the payment-processing policies comprises a state transition specification for each of a plurality of phases of payment processing; and 
 the state transition specifications for each of the phases specify a desired state toward which the payment processing is progressing in that phase, a plurality of starting states for interim payment processing in that phase, and for each of the starting states for interim payment processing, at least one action that is to be carried out for progressing the payment processing from that starting state toward the desired state; 
   programmatically determining, by the policy engine, which of the phases of payment processing is applicable to the received business event notification; and   using, by the policy engine, the state transition specification for the programmatically-determined applicable phase in the programmatically-determined policy to process the payment using the payment method that is associated with this transaction.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method according to  claim 1 , wherein:
 more than one payment method is associated with the transaction;   programmatically determining which of a plurality of payment-processing policies was previously selected is performed for each of the associated payment methods; and   using the state transition specification is performed for each of the associated payment methods.   
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method according to  claim 1 , wherein the previously selected policy was selected, by the merchant, from a plurality of payment-processing policies that each specify how to process a payment when using the payment method. 
     
     
         4 . A system for providing a policy-driven payment processing system, comprising:
 a computer comprising a processor; and   instructions which are executable using the processor to implement functions comprising:
 providing a plurality of payment-processing policies for each of a plurality of payment methods, wherein:
 each of the policies specifies how to process payments for a selected one of the payment methods when using this policy; 
 each of the policies comprises a state transition specification for each of at least three phases of payment processing; and 
 the state transition specifications for each of the phases specify a desired state toward which the payment processing is progressing in that phase, a plurality of starting states for interim payment processing in that phase, and for each of the starting states for interim payment processing, at least one action that is to be carried out for progressing the payment processing from that starting state toward the desired state; 
 enabling a merchant to select, for each of the payment methods, a particular one of the provided policies for processing payments when using that payment method; 
 receiving, at a policy engine from an executing application, business event notifications, each of the business event notifications signifying that business processing of the transaction has reached a particular business stage; 
 programmatically determining, by the policy engine, the policy selected by the merchant for processing the payments when using a selected one of the payment methods that is associated with the transaction; 
 programmatically determining, by the policy engine, which of the phases of payment processing is applicable to each of the received business event notifications; and 
 applying the programmatically-determined policy to process the payment for the transaction, for each of the received business event notifications, thereby moving the payment for the transaction toward completion. 
 
   
     
     
         5 . A computer program product for processing payments, wherein the computer program product is embodied on one or more computer-readable storage media and comprises computer-readable program code for:
 receiving, at a policy engine from an executing application, a business event notification signifying that business processing of a transaction has reached a particular business stage;   programmatically determining, by the policy engine responsive to the receiving, which of a plurality of payment-processing policies was previously selected, by a merchant for which the business processing of the transaction is processed by the executing application, to specify how to process a payment when using a payment method that is associated with this transaction, wherein:
 each of the payment-processing policies comprises a state transition specification for each of a plurality of phases of payment processing; and 
 the state transition specifications for each of the phases specify a desired state toward which the payment processing is progressing in that phase, a plurality of starting states for interim payment processing in that phase, and for each of the starting states for interim payment processing, at least one action that is to be carried out for progressing the payment processing from that starting state toward the desired state; 
   programmatically determining, by the policy engine, which of the phases of payment processing is applicable to the received business event notification; and   using, by the policy engine, the state transition specification for the programmatically-determined applicable phase in the programmatically-determined policy to process the payment using the payment method that is associated with this transaction.   
     
     
         6 . The computer program product according to  claim 5 , wherein:
 more than one payment method is associated with the transaction;   programmatically determining which of a plurality of payment-processing policies was previously selected is performed for each of the associated payment methods; and   using the state transition specification is performed for each of the associated payment methods.   
     
     
         7 . The computer program product according to  claim 5 , wherein the previously selected policy was selected, by the merchant, from a plurality of payment-processing policies that each specify how to process a payment when using the payment method.