Importance

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Abstract

A system and method for automatically calculating and managing customer earned equity liaises several customers with merchants who wish to participate in a plan to reward a customer with earned equity credit, also termed ownership investment credit (OIC), from the merchant's stock holdings, based on a customer's completed purchase of a product or service. A merchant interface which is part of the inventive system, provides access for customers registered in the system to information, merchant brand, product/service categories, incentive program, and price, through descriptive pages which customers can browse. The merchant interface assists a customer to select a merchant, a product/service and to complete an order form. After receiving, verifying and recording the customer's purchase transaction, the merchant interface sends information to a registration and transactions database. From inputs received from the registration and transaction database and based on merchant equity credit calculation rules recorded in the system, a customer's earned equity credit is automatically calculated, stored in an equity credit database and further processed for redemption by the customer, based on redemption rules in the system and based on customer choice. A customer's earned equity credit information may be sent by the system to a stock broker to initiate purchase of stock for the customer. The equity credit calculation rules might include considerations such as customer's purchase volume, customer being a new customer, and payment by customer within terms. The merchants might be selling products or providing services, and could include, without limitation, those dealing in long distance telecommunications, credit card services, gasoline, cable/satellite TV service, Internet service, automobile leasing, mutual finds, bonds, stock funds, or entertainment.

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First Claim