JPH07104967B2 - Card balance settlement device for prepaid card vending machines - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial field of application] The present invention records money amount information on a card in exchange for cash or credit, and every time when a product is purchased with the card, a sale product is obtained from the money amount information. The present invention relates to a prepaid card settlement device used in so-called prepaid card vending machines, which deducts the price of.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, as a payment method for a prepaid card, regardless of the card issuing form, such as a card issued in exchange for cash or a card issued by credit card,
Payment is possible and cash is refunded in bulk (for example,
(Kaikai Sho 63-192870).

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

However, when the prepaid card issued by credit is refunded in cash as in the conventional case, there is a problem that a business operator who refunds cash eventually lends cash without interest.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to provide a card balance settlement device for a prepaid card vending machine, which enables settlement of the card balance depending on the card issuing mode.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

The present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, makes it possible to sell products by inserting a card in which money amount data is written in advance into a predetermined card reader,
In a prepaid card vending machine that writes a new balance to the card balance immediately before the sale of the card inserted for each sale of goods, minus the amount of the sale product, is it a payable card? The card having a code for identifying whether or not it is provided in the recording area of the card, a money payout mechanism for paying back the remaining amount in the card with money, and a settlement determination for determining whether or not the card can be paid by the code. Means and control means for operating the money payout mechanism when it is determined by the settlement determination means that settlement is possible.

[Action]

According to the above-mentioned means, a code for discriminating whether the card is issued by cash or issued by credit is recorded in the information recording area of the prepaid card, the code of the card inserted at the time of payment is read, and issued in exchange for cash. It is possible to settle the balance of the balance only for the card.

〔Example〕

2 to 4 show an embodiment of the present invention, which will be described in detail below.

First, FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of the embodiment.
In FIG. 2, reference numeral 1 denotes a prepaid card 1 which is issued by a card issuing machine (not shown) and in which balance data and issuance form data are written in advance.
The data format 1A of the card 1 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. Reference numeral 11 is a card reader for reading the recorded contents of the card when the card 1 is inserted, that is, the issue form data and the current balance data, and 12 is composed of a CPU and a ROM for storing a control program described below, A card operation control unit as a payment determination means and a control means for performing operation control such as card payment and money payout control, 13
Is a money payout mechanism for paying out money when the card is settled, and 14 is an amount display.

Next, FIG. 3 shows a recording data format 1A of a new prepaid card 1 adopted by the present invention, in which 101 is a start code (also referred to as STX), which is a code indicating the start of the record data. Is. 102 is balance data, that is, data indicating the amount of money that can be purchased using this card. 103 is issuance mode data, which is data indicating whether this card is issued by cash (G) or by credit (C). 104 is an end code (also referred to as EXT), which is a code indicating the end of the recording data.

Next, the operation of FIG. 2 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In advance, when issuing the prepaid card 1, a code for issuing by cash or issuing by credit is recorded in the recording area. When the card 1 is inserted into a settlement device (not shown), the card is obtained in step S1. The recorded data of No. 1 is read by the card reader 11, the data is taken into the card arithmetic control unit 12, and the process proceeds to step S2. Step S2
Then, it is determined by a code indicating whether the card inserted in the card calculation control unit 12 is issued by cash or by credit. For example, if the card is issued by cash, the process proceeds to step S3. Similarly, the card arithmetic control unit 12 outputs a refund signal to the money payout mechanism 13 to pay back money from the money payout mechanism 13. At this time, if the refund amount is displayed on the amount indicator 14, the user can easily grasp the refund amount. After that, in step S5, "0" is written in the settlement code or the balance data in the recording area of the card 1 and the card is returned or collected as it is, thereby ending the settlement operation.

On the other hand, if the card inserted in step S2 is issued by credit, the process proceeds to step S4, and step S4
Then, without paying the balance of Card 1, just use Card 1
Will be returned.

In addition, in the present embodiment, the description has been given of the dedicated card settlement machine, but the settlement function is attached to the card type vending machine, the coin payout mechanism is commonly used for selling coins, and the settlement request button is shared. It may be newly provided to switch between the settlement operation and the selling operation.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to easily determine whether or not the card can be settled when the card balance is settled by writing in the recording area of the card whether the card issuance mode, that is, issuance by cash or issuance by credit card. Since the cash is not refunded at the time of issuing by credit, the situation of lending cash without interest does not occur, and the management of the card becomes easy.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the data format of a card of the present invention, and FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the embodiment in FIG. 2. 1 …… Advance payment card, 11 …… Card reader, 12 ……
Card arithmetic control unit, 13 ... Currency payout mechanism.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. It is possible to sell a product by inserting a card in which money amount data is written into a predetermined card reader, and sell the product from the card balance immediately before the sale of the inserted card for each product sale. In a prepaid card vending machine that writes the amount of the product minus the amount of money as a new balance to the card, the card provided with a code for identifying whether or not the card can be settled in the recording area of the card, A money payout mechanism for paying back the remaining amount in the card in money, a payment determination means for determining whether the card can be settled by the code, and a payment determination means when the settlement determination means determines that the card can be settled. A card balance settlement device for a prepaid card vending machine, comprising: a control unit for operating a money dispensing mechanism.