Abstract: An approach is provided to approving purchases made with a mobile device. In this approach, a purchase request relating to an item is received at the mobile device, with the purchase request including item data associated with the item. The item data is compared to a set of predetermined authorized criteria. If the item data falls within (meets) the predetermined authorized criteria, then a payment authorization is generated. On the other hand, if the item data not meet the predetermined authorized criteria, then a real-time interactive purchase request is sent from the device over a network to an authorizing agent with the purchase request including the item data. A response is received from the authorizing agent. If the response is a purchase approval, then the payment authorization is generated.