FORM 2
THE PATENTS ACT. 1970
(39 of 1970)
Provisional
(See section 10; rule 13)

1. Title of the invention:

SIMPLIFYING CUSTOMER PARTICIPATION IN LOYALTY PROGRAMS

2. Applicant:

(a) LOYALTY SOLUTIONS AND RESEARCH LIMITED
(b) Florence Buliding, CTS 841 to 846 Nehru Road Santecriz (E), Vakola Mumbai-400055

3. Nationality

INDIA

The following specification particularly describes the nature of this invention (and the
manner in which it is to be performed)


Contents
1.Background
2. Existing process
3. Problem statement
4. Solution with Bin + Mobile feature
5. Proposed process
6. Functional specifications
i. Terminal application details ii. Transaction slip details iii. Transaction Process flowchart
1. Background - Customer loyalty is top on the list of strategic goals of many companies, and to achieve this goal companies starts stand alone loyalty program or forms a collation loyalty program , various companies across business categories come together to reward customer. In India i-mint is first multiple partner consumer rewards program, launched in April'2006. Most of the loyalty program works on reward point's concept. Each time customer transacts in a shop .He/she has to quote card no. or swipe the plastic

card at EDC M/C or POS terminal , rewards points gets uploaded in customers account .On accumulation of rewards customer can redeem it for gifts/discounts/exclusive offers etc.
2. Existing Process -
Step 1- Customers walks into store select the product.
Step 2 - Pays by cash or credit card at the billing counter.
Step 3 - Swipes loyalty card or gives the card no at billing counter.
Step 4 - Reward points get uploaded in customers account.

3. Problem statement
Customer perspective - Merchants continue to implement loyalty programs not only because they work, but also because they can be very efficient and cost-effective ways to grow the business. But today's time-pressured consumers are not only prone to losing or forgetting to carry their cards, they're also impatient with programs that require too much effort to participate.
Operations perspective -On the operations side, even the most intelligently designed loyalty program can't eliminate these realities: the hard costs of producing, distributing and storing plastic cards; slower throughput at the
register; and the missed opportunities associated with lost or forgotten cards.

4. Solution offered with BIN+Mobile feature
i-mint is adding one more feature in the product, as a feature of the program customer does not need to carry any physical card his Mobile no., pre-fixed with a 6 Digit BIN No.( 940119) will be the i-mint card no, the screen of terminal will provide the option of entering 10 digit Mobile No. e.g. If a customers mobile no is 9800000000, the 16 digit virtual loyalty card no. will be 940119 9800000000.
■ Customer convenience - Customer is not required to remember or carry any card the mobile no becomes the loyalty card no.
■ Cost savings on operational and plastic card Improves the overall ROI of loyalty programs.
■ Time to market - Customer can use the mobile no as the loyalty card no as soon as the accounts get created in the system and intimation SMS is sent to customer.
■ Better customer experience; as he/she is not required to carry a physical card or remember the card no. customers mobile no becomes card no, hence reduction in missed opportunities associated with lost or forgotten cards.
■ Environment friendly, as Bin+mobile concept eliminates the production of plastic card completely.
5. Proposed Process


Functional Specifications of the product:
I. Terminal Application
1. f-mint will be a separate application on the ICICI Bank EDC terminal
2. The application should be accessible through a separate tab on the termina screen called M-mint'.

3. After entering the application through the i-mint screen, the application should give an option for 'the mode of entry' as follows:
a. Card Swipe (default option)
b. Manual entry of card no.
c. Mobile alias - i-mobile
Screen 2

Card Swipe
4. Card swipe will be the default option (automatic on card swipe) and also the first tab on this screen
5. Pressing this tab will also allow the i-mint card to be swiped on the terminal
Manual entry of card no.
6. On selecting the 'manual entry' option, the terminal will take to another screen
and ask the user to enter


a. 16 digit Card No. with 'one space after every 4 digits'.
b. One space after every 4 digits of the card no. is pre-programmed in the
s/w.
Mobile Alias - i-Mobile
7. Customer's Mobile no., pre-fixed with a 6 Digit BIN No. will be her j-mint card no.
8. The 6 digit BIN no. will be a constant, pre-loaded no. on the application.
9. BIN No. 940119 can be used for the i-Mobile application.
10.The screen will provide the option of entering 10 digit Mobile No. as 'mode of entry' of transaction. The Mobile No. will be entered in 10 blank spaces as 5 + 5 (Refer point 11). For example; ***** *****
11.The blank space after 5 digits is pre-programmed in the s/w.
12.The 6 digit BIN no. will be pre-fed in the terminal and therefore will get pre¬fixed before the mobile no. of the customer and this 16 digit number should be treated as the complete card no. for the customer.

13.There should be NO MOD 10 logic (for the mobile number entry only) in the machine so that this 'mobile alias' card no. can be accepted as a valid number by the EDC machine.
Transaction
15.The transaction amount will be a numeral up to 2 decimal places.
14.Post the swipe/manual entry/mobile no. entry of the card no., the terminal will ask for the amount of transaction


16.Confirmation of the amount on the terminal screen with a YES or NO tab

17The terminal will print 2 copies of the transaction slip. One is the merchant copy and the other is the customer copy.
Details on the transaction slip
18.TOP: Punch-line and i-mint Logo
19.Line 1: Merchant Name and Location
20.Line 2: City
21.Line 3: Date &Time
22.Line 4: Loyalty MID & Loyalty TID
23.Line 5: Batch No. & Invoice No.
24.Line 6: Header for transaction: i-mintTransaction'. Currently it is 'Award'.
25.Line 7: Card Number: 9401 15xx xxxx xxxx and 'Swipe' or 'Manual' or *i-
mobile'(that is the mode of transaction): 940119 xxxxx xxxxx. 26.Line 8: Exp. Date: xx/xx & Card Type: Loyalty
27.Line 9: Approval Code xxxxxx & RREF Num:
28.Line 10: Amount Rs. (Amount in up to 2 decimal places) 29.Line 11 to 13: Will not be present in the new version 1.5 30.Line 14: 'Merchant Copy' or 'Customer Copy' 31.Line 15: "Ensure that the above details are correct"

II. Sample Transaction slips


III. Transaction process flow chart