System and method for electronically processing commercial transactions based upon threshold amount

摘要

The invention is a system and method for electronically processing electronic payment transactions. The invention provides a system and method for processing electronic payment transactions based upon a threshold amount. The system and method determine whether a monetary amount associated with a transaction meets a threshold amount and selects an account of the purchaser for settling the transaction based upon that determination. The invention thus allows micropayments, of an amount beneath a threshold, to be settled with one account, whereas non-micropayments may be settled to another account. In other embodiments, the threshold is based upon cumulative amounts, which may include amounts associated with subscriber use of the payment device, when the payment device is a subscriber device such as a wireless communications device. In other embodiments, a choice of which account to use in settling a transaction is based, at least in part, on whether or not a merchant at which a transaction is being made is authorized according to certain criteria.