Method and apparatus for delegating authority

• US 20020174048A1
• Filed: 04/26/2002
• Published: 11/21/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Checkfree Services Corporation (Fiserv Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: CashEdge Incorporated (Fiserv Incorporated)
• Inventors: Sareen, Manu, Dilip, Venkatachari, Messing, Roy, Dheer, Sanjeev, Sokolic, Jeremy, Sinha, Gautam
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,508 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

A delegated authority system allows an account holder to delegate authority to one or more individuals, such as financial advisors through a third party service. An individual receives authority to access financial accounts and/or access aggregated financial data. The individual may then retrieve account information from the individual accounts or from the aggregated financial data. In on exemplary system, the account information is accessed via the Internet or another data communication network.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying an individual to which an account holder is to delegate access to data associated with the account holder;

identifying data that the individual is permitted to access;

identifying activities that the individual is permitted to perform; and

storing the identity of the identified individual, the identified data, and the identified activities in a central location.

2. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the central location is a server accessible via the Internet.

3. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the data associated with the account holder is financial data collected from a plurality of accounts associated with the account holder.

4. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the identified data is summary data associated with accounts associated with the account holder.

5. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the identified data is transaction data associated with transactions in accounts associated with the account holder.

6. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the identified data includes summary data associated with accounts associated with the account holder and transaction data associated with transactions in accounts associated with the account holder.

7. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the method is performed through a service accessible via the Internet.

8. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the individual is a financial advisor.

9. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the individual is a lawyer.

10. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the individual is an accountant.

11. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the individual is a spouse of the account holder.

12. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the identified activities include reviewing the identified data.

13. A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the identified activities include executing transactions in accounts associated with the account holder.

15. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein the individual is a financial advisor.

16. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein the individual is a spouse of the account holder.

17. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein the individual is an attorney of the account holder.

18. A method as recited in claim 14 further comprising identifying activities that the individual may perform with respect to the first account and the second account.

19. A method as recited in claim 18 wherein permitting the individual to access the first account and the second account includes permitting the individual to perform the identified activities.

20. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein permitting the individual to access the first account and the second account includes retrieving account balance information associated with the first account and the second account.

21. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein permitting the individual to access the first account and the second account includes retrieving account transaction details associated with the first account and the second account.

22. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein permitting the individual to access the first account and the second account includes transferring assets between the first account and the second account.

23. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein permitting the individual to access the first account and the second account includes automatically retrieving account information via an online login mechanism.

24. A method as recited in claim 14 further comprising:

identifying a second individual to which the account holder is to delegate financial authority;

delegating financial authority regarding the first account to the second individual; and

delegating financial authority regarding the second account to the second individual.

25. A method as recited in claim 14 wherein the method is performed through a third-party service accessible via the Internet.

26. One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 14.

28. A method as recited in claim 27 wherein the first account and the second account are financial accounts associated with a common financial institution.

29. A method as recited in claim 27 wherein the first account is associated with a first financial institution and the second account is associated with a second financial institution.

30. A method as recited in claim 27 further comprising:

receiving authority to access a third account associated with the first account holder;

retrieving account information from the third account; and

aggregating data from the first account with data from the third financial account.

31. A method as recited in claim 27 wherein receiving authority to access the first account includes receiving permission to perform specific activities with respect to the first account.

32. A method as recited in claim 27 wherein receiving authority to access the first account includes receiving permission to obtain account information via an online source.

33. A method as recited in claim 27 wherein receiving authority to access the first account includes receiving permission to transfer funds into or out of the first account.

34. A method as recited in claim 27 further comprising generating a report based on account information retrieved from the first account and the second account.

35. A method as recited in claim 27 further comprising searching for account information that is common to both the first account and the second account.

36. A method as recited in claim 27 further comprising generating messages based on account information that is common to both the first account and the second account.

37. One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 27.

39. An apparatus as recited in claim 38 wherein the data associated with the account holder is financial data collected from a plurality of financial accounts associated with the account holder.

40. An apparatus as recited in claim 38 wherein the individual is a financial advisor.

14. A method comprising:

identifying an individual to which an account holder is to delegate financial authority;

identifying a first account to which the individual is delegated financial authority, wherein the first account belongs to the account holder and is associated with a first financial institution;

identifying a second account to which the individual is delegated financial authority, wherein the second account belongs to the account holder and is associated with a second financial institution; and

permitting the individual to access the first account and the second account.

27. A method comprising:

receiving authority to access a first account associated with a first account holder;

receiving authority to access a second account associated with a second account holder;

retrieving account information from the first account; and

retrieving account information from the second account.

38. An apparatus comprising:

means for identifying an individual to which an account holder is to delegate access to data associated with the account holder;

means for identifying data that the individual is permitted to access;

means for identifying activities that the individual is permitted to perform; and

means for storing the identified individual identity, the identified data, and the identified activities in a central location.

41. One or more computer-readable media having stored thereon a computer program that, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to:

identify an individual to which a user is to delegate authority to access data associated with the user, wherein the individual is identified through an online service;

identify data to which the user is delegating authority, wherein the data is identified through the online service; and

permit the identified individual to access the identified data.

42. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 41 wherein the individual is a financial advisor.

43. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 41 wherein the identified data is aggregated data from multiple user accounts.

44. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 41 wherein the identified individual is permitted to retrieve data from the multiple user accounts.