Integrated bill consolidation, payment aggregation, and settlement system

• US 20020198835A1
• Filed: 08/28/2002
• Published: 12/26/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/1997
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Payment Engineering LLC
• Original Assignee: Payment Engineering LLC
• Inventors: Watson, Craig M.
• Application Number:
  US10/230,010
• Publication Number:
  US 20020198835A1
• 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 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof

Abstract

The present invention is an integrated bill consolidation, payment aggregation, and account-payment application system. The system acts as a settlements exchange for the execution of payments between households or small businesses and the service establishments (principally utilities, financial institutions, telecoms, and others) that serve them. The system eliminates paper check payments without requiring automation at the household level (for example, telephone bill-pay, PC payment systems). The invention provides for the consolidated billing of a plurality of services to a plurality of households, the payment to individual service establishments in aggregate “bullet” transfers (verses individual household payments), and the automated application of payments to service establishment accounts. The present system computes, stores, and communicates the information needed to direct the financial institution processing of debit and credit transactions between thousands of service establishments providing goods and services and millions of consuming households. The system provides for a number of methods of payment, adjusts for partial and delayed payments, and automatically structures and schedules payments in arrears.

Claims

1-1. 1 The method of paying bills of claim 1, wherein the step of calculating an obligation value calculates a consolidated actual payment value.

1-2. 2 The method of paying bills of claim 1, wherein the step of calculating an obligation value calculates a constant proforma consolidated payment value.

1-3. 3 The method of paying bills of claim 1, further including generating a single consolidated household billing statement and transmitting the single consolidated household billing statement to each household.

1-7. 4 The method of paying bills of claim 1, further including the step of issuing to each service establishments a detailed verification of each household'"'"'s payment.

2-8. 1 The method of paying bills of claim 2, wherein the step of calculating an obligation value calculates a consolidated actual payment value.

2-9. 2 The method of paying bills of claim 2, wherein the step of calculating an obligation value calculates a proforma payment value.

2-10. 3 The method of paying bills of claim 2, further including the steps of generating a single consolidated household billing statement and transmitting the single consolidated household billing statement to each household.

2-15. 4 The method of paying bills of claim 2, further including the step of issuing to each service establishments a detailed verification of each household'"'"'s payment.

2-16. 5 The method of paying bills of claim 2, wherein the step of providing a personal settlements exchange with billing information from service establishments further comprises:

enrolling households in the personal settlements exchange;

downloading historical household information to the personal settlements exchange;

creating a matched database of households, service establishments and financial institutions (FIN);

assigning a unique identifier to each household; and

downloading service establishment billing information on a continuing basis.

2-17. 6 A method of paying bills of claim, further, including the step of calculating of payment risk factors for the household:

2-19. 7 The method of paying bills of claim 2, wherein the step of calculating an obligation value for each household further comprises:

compiling risk-adjustment factors with which to adjust the obligation value for each household to each service establishment;

consolidating all household service establishment payment obligations into a single value; and

further calculating a constant consolidated obligation value.

2-20. 8 The method of paying bills of claim 2, wherein the step of downloading from a personal settlements exchange to a financial institution further comprises:

establishing a connection between the personal settlements exchange and the financial institution;

creating household billing information;

correlating households with financial institutions; and

downloading billing information detail to financial institutions.

2-21. 9 The method of paying bills of claim 2, wherein the step of instructing financial institutions to debit from or charge to the household, an obligation value further comprises:

issuing household instructions to financial institutions;

channeling failed payments or specially designated accounts to an exception handling system; and

confirming payments by financial institution, household, and amount of debit or charge.

3. A method of providing a personal settlements exchange with billing information from service establishments, comprising:

enrolling households in the personal settlements exchange;

downloading historical household information to the personal settlements exchange;

creating a matched database of households, service establishments and financial institutions;

assigning a unique identifier to each household; and

downloading service establishment billing information on a continuing basis.

4. A method of calculation of payment risk factors comprising:

analyzing historical payment patterns for service establishments and financial institutions serving households;

computing a payment risk factor for households;

computing a receivables risk factor for service establishments; and

normalizing the household and service establishment risk factors.

5. A method of calculation of proforma payments for household services, comprising:

compiling risk factors for households; and

computing risk-adjusted service establishment-specific payments for each household.

6. A method of calculating an obligation value for each household, comprising:

compiling risk-adjustment factors with which to adjust the obligation value for each household to each service establishment;

consolidating all household service establishment payment obligations into a single value; and

further calculating a constant consolidated obligation value.

7. A method of downloading from a personal settlements exchange to a financial institution, comprising:

establishing a connection between the personal settlements exchange and the financial institution;

creating household billing information;

correlating households with financial institutions; and

downloading billing information detail to financial institutions.

8. A method of instructing financial institutions to debit from or charge to the household, an obligation value, comprising:

issuing household instructions to financial institutions;

channeling failed payments or specially designated accounts to an exception handling system; and

confirming payments by financial institution, household, and amount of debit or charge.

9. A method of making payments to service establishments, comprising:

accumulating the household obligation values destined for the same service establishments;

downloading to financial institutions information for service establishments; and

instructing financial institutions to issue the household obligation values to service establishments.

10. A method of identifying to service establishments the correct application to individual household accounts of the aggregate payments received, comprising:

receiving from financial institutions of the correspondence between aggregate payments made and the payment instructions;

generating a list of individual households and their corresponding payments by service establishment;

sorting the household payments by service establishment;

sorting the service establishment specific household payments; and

downloading to service establishments, the list of applied household account payments.