The Design And Implementation Of Electronic Payment System Based On IFSF Protocol At Gas Station

The gas station POS(Point of Sale) system in United States integrates the functionality of electronic payment, all sales happened in gas station are paid by POS system. The POS system needs to implement the protocol of visiting payment terminal and the protocol of specific financial front end processor, and it also requires the provider of the gas station POS system to know the business flow in gas station, so it’s difficult to develop a gas station POS system, the gas station POS system is usually provided by pump manufactures like Gilbarco and Tokheim, it causes that the gas station has less option to choose a POS system. In order to resolve this problem, this paper brings up a solution that we remove the electronic payment function from the gas station POS system and then implement an independent electronic payment system; the electronic payment protocol of IFSF(International Forecourt Standard Forum Forecourt) is used as the communication protocol between the POS system and electronic payment system. The POS system does not need to implement the protocol of visiting payment terminal and the protocol of specific financial front end processor by this solution, it only needs to implement the standard electronic payment protocol of IFSF and interacts with electronic payment system with required flow to complete the functionality to pay gas station sales. The electronic payment system is deployed on FC(Forecourt Controller) of gas station, and it provides services of electronic payment to gas station POS system through FC, it is part of the FC and provided to gas station with FC together.This paper analyzes the requirement of electronic payment in petroleum retailer market in Unite States, designs the electronic payment system based on the electronic payment protocol of IFSF, implements modules of electronic payment system, and tests functional and non-functional points of electronic payment system. The modules of electronic payment system are implemented in state machine programming theory, which are EPS(Electronic Payment Sever) module, POSFEP(POS Front End Processor) module and FPOS(Forecourt POS) module. These modules communicate with each other by defined interfaces, and every module implements the specific business logic which will not affect other module’s design and implementation. EPS module implements the electronic payment protocol of IFSF and the protocol of visiting payment terminal, it’s the module that’s used to interact with the gas station POS system as well as control the payment terminal. POSFEP module implements the protocol of specific financial front end processor, the electronic payment system uses it to communicate with the financial front end processor in order to pay the sales. FPOS module implements the IFSF protocol of forecourt device control, it can send commands to FC to control pump, and it also implements the flow of outdoor self-service fueling and interacts with EPS module to pay the outdoor self-service fuel sale.The electronic payment system has already been used in some gas stations of United States, it’s been running in gas station’s FC and can provide the POS system function of electronic payment for indoor dry item sale, indoor fuel prepay transaction and outdoor self-service fuel sale as well as function of generating reconciliation reports. The gas stations running the electronic payment system do not lost their functionality to sell dry products and fuel products, and more importantly, they can use POS system supporting IFSF electronic payment protocol. The new POS system is developed by retailer POS manufacturer, which has user friendly UI and applies more advanced technology, so the gas station will no longer use outdated POS system with boring UI which is provided by pump manufacturer. Besides, the electronic payment system has ability to complete the outdoor self-service fuel sale independently, so the gas station can still sell fuel product even when the POS system is not available due to maintenance or other reasons, this will reduce non-working time of gas station and increase sales in gas station. It follows that the electronic payment system can provide gas station POS system standard interface for electronic payment and control the flow of outdoor self-service fuel sale, it greatly simplifies the development of gas station POS system, so that the super market and convenience store POS provider can enter into petroleum retailer market, and the pump manufacturer can deploy the electronic payment system into its FC so that its FC do not just control forecourt devices but also provide functionality of electronic payment, this will make its FC more competitive and help it to occupy the market.