System and method for obtaining customer bill information and facilitating bill payment at biller websites

• US 20030191711A1
• Filed: 04/02/2003
• Published: 10/09/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fidelity Information Services, LLC (Fidelity National Information Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Metavante Corporation (Fidelity National Information Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Fortney, David S., Jamison, Eric W., Vasavada, Dhaval A., Kosowski, Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 7,958,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• 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 20/14 specially adapted for billing systems
• 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 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

An integrated electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) system is disclosed which obtains bills for customers (which include individuals, businesses, and organizations) and allow payments including payments by credit card to be processed at the biller websites on behalf of customers. The integrated EBPP system obtains bills for customers from paper billers, electronic billers, and scrape-enabled biller websites, with customers providing access information for biller websites to the integrated EBPP system, which uses a software agent or bot to make scheduled scrapes of biller websites to obtain customer bills. The integrated EBPP system enables customers to automatically set up a user account at biller websites, with customers providing user access information and user financial account information, such as a credit card or debit card, for accessing biller websites and for initiating payments at biller websites.

Claims

1. An electronic bill payment system comprising:

a user interface for enabling a user to enter user financial account information and user access information for use in accessing a biller website and for initiating payment at said biller website from a user financial account; and

a bot program for using said user access information to access said biller website, said bot program using said user financial account information to initiate a payment on behalf of the user at said biller website from said user financial account.

2. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a scheduling component enabling the user to schedule a payment initiation date, said scheduling component further allowing the user to define payment rules.

3. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 2, wherein said payment rules comprise a manual payment rule, an automatic payment rule, and a recurring payment rule.

4. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a payment validation mechanism to review information associated with said payment prior to making said payment to ensure that said payment will be successfully processed.

5. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a login verification mechanism to validate said user access information for accessing said biller website and verifying said user access information used to access said biller website and determining any potential problem in advance of making a payment.

6. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

an automated user ID and password feature for facilitating online setup of a user account at said biller website for the user if the user does not have a user account with said biller website.

7. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 6, wherein said automated user ID and password feature captures user information from the user which is necessary to set up online access with said biller website.

8. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 6, wherein said automated user ID and password feature attempts to use a preferred ID and a preferred password provided by the user to set up online access with said biller website.

9. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 8, wherein said automated user ID and password feature automatically creates a new user ID and a new user password that meets the biller website requirements if said preferred user ID and/or said preferred password are not valid at said biller website.

10. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a credit card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a credit card.

11. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a debit card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a debit card.

12. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

stored valued card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a stored value card.

13. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a smart card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a smart card.

14. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a check payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with an electronic check.

15. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a backup account payment mechanism which enables the user to select at least one user financial account which will be used to settle a bill if the bill is not settled with a payment from said user financial account.

16. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a bill presentment component for gathering user bills from billers, said electronic bill payment system being operative to pay electronic bills gathered by said bill presentment component.

17. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 16, wherein said bill presentment component comprises:

an agent program acting as a proxy for the user for accessing a biller website using said user access information, said agent program scraping said biller website to obtain bill data for said user, said agent program returning said user bill data from said biller website to said bill presentment component for presentment to said user.

18. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 16, further comprising:

a bill balancing feature for computing the current balance of said user financial account by subtracting from an account balance the amounts of bills paid since the last time the account balance was updated.

19. An electronic bill presentment and payment system as defined in claim 1, wherein said bot program runs at off-peak hours to ensure faster processing.

20. An electronic bill presentment and payment system comprising:

a bill center for enabling a user bill to be presented and paid over the Internet, said bill center enabling a user to enter user access information and user financial account information;

an first agent program acting as a proxy for said user for accessing a biller website using said user access information, said first agent program scraping said biller website for user bill data, said first agent program returning said user bill data from said biller website to said bill center;

an automated account setup option for facilitating online set up of a user account at a biller websites for said user if said user does not have a user account with said biller website;

a first account bill payment component for paying bills from a first user financial account, said user financial account information including information relating to said first user financial account;

a second account bill payment component for paying bills from a second user financial account if payment of bills from said first user financial account is not possible, said user financial account information including information relating to said second user financial account; and

a second agent program for using said user access information to access said biller website, said second agent program using said user financial account information to initiate a payment from at least one of said first and second user financial accounts at said biller website.

21. An electronic bill payment system, comprising:

a user interface for enabling a user to enter user access information allowing a user to access a biller website, said user interface also allowing said user to select at least one of a plurality of payment options for initiating payment at said biller website; and

an agent program for using said user access information to access said biller website, said agent program using said selected payment option to initiate a payment on behalf of said user at said biller website.

22. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 21, wherein said plurality of payment options includes at least two from the group consisting of a checking account, a credit card account, and a debit card account.

23. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 21, further comprising:

an automated account setup agent program for facilitating online set up of a user account at the biller website for said user if said user does not have a user account with said biller website.

24. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 21, wherein said user interface further allows said user to select at least one of a plurality of backup payment options for initiating payment at said biller website, said electronic bill payment system further comprising:

a backup agent program for using said user access information to access said biller website, said agent program using said backup payment option to initiate a payment on behalf of said user at said biller website if said selected payment option fails to settle a bill.

25. A method of paying bills via the Internet, comprising:

setting up a user to settle bills at a biller website by acquiring user access information required to access said biller website and user financial account information to perform a payment at said biller website from said user financial account; and

initiating payment at said biller website using said user access information and said user financial account information.

26. A method as defined in claim 25, wherein said user financial account is a credit card account or a debit card account.

27. A method as defined in claim 25, further comprising:

accessing said biller website using said user access information to scrape user bill data from said biller website.

28. A method as defined in claim 25, further comprising:

automatically setting up a user account for initiating payment at said biller website based on said user financial account information.

29. A method as defined in claim 25, further comprising:

enabling said user to select a primary payment account and at least one backup payment account, wherein said backup payment account is used to settle a bill if a primary payment account fails to settle a bill.

30. A method of paying bills via the Internet, comprising:

enabling a user to enter user access information required to access a biller website;

automatically setting up a user account at said biller website if said user has not set up a user account at said biller website;

enabling said user to enter user financial account information necessary to perform a payment at said biller website, said user financial account information includes a credit card information or a debit card information; and

initiating payment at said biller website using said user access information and said user financial account information.

31. A method of paying bills via the Internet, comprising:

providing an interface for a user to enter user access information required to access a biller website, wherein said user access information is validated at said biller website;

automatically setting up a user account at said biller website if the user has not set up a user account at the biller website;

accessing said biller website using the user access information to scrape user bill data from the biller website;

providing an interface for the user to enter bill payment information necessary to pay a bill at the biller site; and

initiating bill payment at the biller website using the user access information and the bill payment information.

32. A method of paying bills via the Internet, comprising:

prompting a user to enter user access information for a biller website;

prompting the user to select at least one of a plurality of bill payment options; and

using the user access information to access and initiate a bill payment at said biller website.

33. A method as defined in claim 32, wherein said plurality of bill payment options at least one selected from the group consisting of a check payment option, a credit card payment option, a debit card payment option, and combination thereof.

34. A method as defined in claim 32, further comprising:

prompting the user to select at least one of said plurality of bill payment options as a backup option, wherein said backup option is used to settle a bill if the primary payment option fails to pay a bill.

35. A method as defined in claim 32, further comprising:

automatically setting up a user account at said biller website if the user has not set up a user account at the biller website.