System and method for secure third-party development and hosting within a financial services network

• US 20010032181A1
• Filed: 12/22/2000
• Published: 10/18/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Pfost, Jarrod E., Waterston, Michael L., Jakstadt, Eric G., Badari, Vasantha
• Granted Patent: US 7,822,683 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

An electronic billing statement, presented as a user interface to a registered user of a server, the electronic billing statement comprising a first component, hosted by a financial service center, to navigate the user UI and invoke one or more functions of the financial service center, and a second component, hosted by a third-party, to provide detailed billing information from a biller to the registered user.

Claims

1. An electronic billing statement, presented as a user interface (UI) to a user of a server, the electronic billing statement comprising:

a first component, hosted by a financial service center, to navigate the UI and invoke one or more functions of the financial service center; and

a second component, hosted by a third-party, to provide detailed billing information from a biller to the user.

2. An electronic billing statement according to

claim 1

, wherein the second component is only provided to the user upon verification of user authorization to receive the detailed billing information.

3. An electronic billing statement according to

claim 2

, wherein the first component provides summary billing information.

4. An electronic billing statement according to

claim 3

, wherein the financial service center receives batch bill information along with authentication strings from the biller.

5. An electronic billing statement according to

claim 4

, wherein the authentication strings are sent to the third-party to authorize delivery of the second component.

6. An electronic billing statement according to

claim 1

, wherein each of the financial service center and the third-party independently create the billing statement on the server.

7. An electronic billing statement according to

claim 1

, wherein the billing statement is comprised of a plurality of executable instructions sent from the financial service center and the third-party for rendering in a browser executing on a user computing system.

8. A storage medium comprising a plurality of executable instructions which, when executed, render a billing statement according to

claim 1

.

9. A network facilitating electronic bill payment and presentment to consumers, the network comprising:

a financial service center, providing a common network address where consumers can review and pay bills from a number of billers, to host at least a subset of a billing statement for review by a requesting user; and

a third-party server, coupled to the financial service center, to provide bill summary information to the financial service center, which securely and imperceptibly redirects the user to the third-party server which hosts at least a subset of the billing statement comprising detailed billing information.

10. A method for developing content for an on-line system, the method comprising:

establishing a development account and storage space on a development server, uniquely identifying authorized developers;

posting developed content to the development account space on the development server; and

invoking an automated validation agent to validate the developed content, before promoting the developed content to a production level of the system.

11. A method according to

claim 10

, wherein establishing the biller development account comprises:

registering third-party certifications with the development system, uniquely identifying third-party developers.

12. A method according to

claim 10

, further comprising:

determining whether the third-party developed content passed validation; and

propagating third-party content files from the development server to a production server for dissemination to one or more web servers.

13. A method according to

claim 12

, wherein a user accesses the third14 party developed content via the web servers.

14. A method according to

claim 13

, wherein the web servers host an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) service.

15. A method according to

claim 14

, wherein the EBPP service includes content developed and hosted independent of the web server.

16. A method according to

claim 12

, wherein propagating third-party content files to the production server comprises:

simulating consumer load on the content files; and

propagating the content files to one or more web servers upon successful completion of load testing.

17. A method according to

claim 10

, wherein the development system comprises a secure development resource to enable authorized third-party content developers to remotely develop content.

18. A storage medium comprising a plurality of executable instructions which, when executed, implement a method according to

claim 10

.

19. An electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) system comprising:

one or more servers, coupled to a data network, through which billers and consumers access the EBPP system; and

a secure third-party development platform, wherein registered developers can develop content for publication via the EBPP system upon validation.

20. An EBPP system according to

claim 19

, wherein the secure third-party development platform comprises:

a development server, wherein authorized third-party content developers can remotely develop and debug content for subsequent posting to users through the one or more servers; and

a validation agent, responsive to the development server, to automatically test and certify that the third-party content developed on the development server is robust and will not harm production servers.

21. An EBPP system according to

claim 20

, further comprising:

a production server, to receive validated third-party content; and

a simulation agent, to automatically perform load testing on the validated third-party content.

22. An EBPP system according to

claim 21

, wherein content that passes load testing is promoted from the production space to the one or more servers for access and use by consumers and billers.

23. A method for validating third-party developed content for publication through an electronic bill presentment and payment system, the method comprising:

receiving third-party developed content;

reading the received third-party developed content, reviewing the content to identify logical, syntactical or security errors; and

promoting only that content for which no errors are identified for publication on one or more servers comprising the EBPP system.

24. A method according to

claim 23

, wherein promoting the content comprises:

posting validated third-party content to a production server; and

simulating consumer load on the validated third-party content to ensure that the content will perform under load.

25. A method according to

claim 24

, further comprising:

posting third-party content from the production server to one or more web servers providing a consumer interface to the EBPP system upon verification that the content will perform under consumer load.

26. A method according to

claim 25

, further comprising:

issuing instructions to a requesting user to render a billing statement, wherein the billing statement reflects the third-party content, while one section of the billing statement is hosted by the web servers, while another section of the billing statement is hosted by a third-party server.

27. A method according to

claim 26

, wherein the third-party server is hosted by the biller.

28. A method according to

claim 23

, further comprising:

issuing instructions to a requesting user to render a billing statement, wherein the billing statement reflects the third-party content, while one section of the billing statement is hosted by the web servers, while another section of the billing statement is hosted by a third-party server.