Efficient and incentivized enrollment in an automatic payment program for recurring bills
First Claim
1. A method for enrolling a customer into an automatic bill payment service, the service making payments for the customer from a financial institution to one or more merchants, the method comprising:
- receiving, from the customer, a request corresponding to the one or more merchants; and
instructing the one or more merchants identified in the request to make automatic charges to an account at the financial institution, the account corresponding to the customer, and the automatic charges to be made in response to the generation of recurring bills by the one or more merchants for the customer.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods are described for a customer to enroll in and manage a program for automatic payment for the recurring bills of a number of merchants within a single interface. The interface can be provided by the customer'"'"'s credit card-issuing financial institution, which contacts the customer-selected merchants and arranges for automatic payment via the credit card. As an incentive for the customer'"'"'s enrollment, an award such as award points or a lower rate of interest can be provided with respect to the automatically made transactions.
77 Citations
26 Claims
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1. A method for enrolling a customer into an automatic bill payment service, the service making payments for the customer from a financial institution to one or more merchants, the method comprising:
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receiving, from the customer, a request corresponding to the one or more merchants; and
instructing the one or more merchants identified in the request to make automatic charges to an account at the financial institution, the account corresponding to the customer, and the automatic charges to be made in response to the generation of recurring bills by the one or more merchants for the customer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method for promoting a customer of a financial institution to use an automatic payment service for recurring bills of one or more merchants, the method comprising:
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enrolling the customer into the automatic payment service for the one or more merchants;
receiving, from one of the merchants in response to the generation of a recurring bill and without customer interaction, a charge for goods or services provided or to be provided to the customer;
charging an account of the customer at the financial institution; and
providing an award relative to the charge. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13)
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14. A method for automatically paying recurring bills for a customer of a financial institution comprising:
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receiving, from a merchant, a request for payment for goods or services provided or to be provided by the merchant to the customer, the request being one of a recurring series;
transmitting payment to the merchant for the goods or services in response to the request;
charging a customer account at the financial institution in connection with the payment; and
providing an award to the customer, the award associated with the charge to the customer account at the financial institution;
wherein the merchant provides similar goods or services to the customer on a recurring basis, and wherein the customer has previously authorized that bills for the recurring provisions of similar goods or services be paid by the financial institution and charged to the customer account at the financial institution, and wherein the previous authorization was given directly to the financial institution, and the financial institution communicated the authorization to the merchant. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A system for enrolling a customer and managing the customer'"'"'s enrollment in an automatic bill payment service, the service making payments for the customer from a financial institution to one or more merchants, the system comprising:
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an account database including a record of an account of the customer at the financial institution; and
an interface for entering information pertaining to the customer and one or more accounts of the customer at one or more identified merchants which are instructed to make automatic charges to the customer account at the financial institution, the automatic charges to be made in response to the generation of recurring bills for the one or more accounts of the customer at the one or more merchants. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22)
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23. A system for automatically paying recurring bills for a customer of a financial institution comprising:
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a request, received from a merchant, for payment for goods or services provided or to be provided by the merchant to the customer, the request being one of a recurring series;
a payment, transmitted to the merchant for the goods or services in response to the request;
a charge, made to a customer account at the financial institution in connection with the payment; and
an award, provided to the customer and associated with the charge to the customer account at the financial institution;
wherein the merchant provides similar goods or services to the customer on a recurring basis, and wherein the customer has previously authorized that bills for the recurring provisions of similar goods or services be paid by the financial institution and charged to the customer account at the financial institution, and wherein the previous authorization was given directly to the financial institution, and the financial institution communicated the authorization to the one or more merchants. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26)
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Specification