Methods and systems for implementing on-line financial institution services via a single platform

• US 20060195816A1
• Filed: 10/03/2005
• Published: 08/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citicorp Credit Services Incorporated (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Citicorp Credit Services Incorporated (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Inventors: Cohen, Albert, Markarian, Grigor, Khalili, Farah, Mast, Mike, Riblett, John, Khilkevich, Simon, Chitnis, Amit, Bitter, Mark, Kowalski, Chris, Vyas, Naresh, Karwa, Rajashree, Vernekar, Ravin, Dimond, Jeremy, Kharul, Avinash, Stolarov, Gene, Krawiec, Ted, Petach, Teresa, Grandcolas, Michael, Parekh, Dilip, Shahdousti, Sam, Koryakovtseva, Irina
• Granted Patent: US 10,636,084 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03

Abstract

A method and system for implementing on-line financial institution services via a single physical and logical platform deploys global online banking applications in an environment in which the applications are built from a single source base and adapted to various business rules and languages associated with different regions, countries and businesses. Separate web apps are created for each individual business according to contextual attributes, and application servers running the context dependent web apps provide the interface between customers and banking functionality. The platform relies in part on reuse of appropriate components to achieve integration, as well as sharing of core services. As a result of the independent nature of business specific components, each business may require different versions of application software and may update or implement new components without affecting existing business components.

Claims

1. A method for implementing on-line financial institution services via a single physical and logical platform, comprising:

providing a plurality of applications consisting at least in part of on-line banking, alert, portal building, and authentication applications running on the same application server for a plurality of businesses, while allowing each of the businesses an option to select different versions of an application independent of one another;

providing a shared set of facilities for use by all of the applications consisting at least in part of languages, business rules, navigation, personalization, content, customization, compositing, logging, authentication, authorization, and security services;

providing content for the applications consisting at least in part of language, business rules, and personalization via a business hierarchy database structure; and

caching the content in memory to eliminate database access and decrease response time.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein allowing each of the businesses the option to select different versions of an application independent of one another further comprises providing separate web apps for each of the businesses.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein providing separate web apps for each of the businesses further comprises providing web app context for each of the businesses running in the same servlet container while keeping each business separate.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein providing web app context for each of the businesses running in the same servlet container further comprises allowing the plurality of businesses to share the same session context.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the content via the business hierarchy database structure further comprises allowing each of the businesses to inherit business rules, language and other content from a standard base while allowing individual country and business variation.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein caching the content in memory further comprises caching rules, phrases, and HTML content in memory.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein caching the content in memory further comprises dynamically updating caches in a running system using specific cache controller classes.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein caching content in memory further comprises caching all of the financial institution'"'"'s business rules and language phrases and at least a portion of its content in memory and allowing each of the businesses through cache controllers and an admin counsel an option to change at least one business rule or update at least one business phrase and to cause a running system to purchase current content and update content in the running system.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing an orderly, online cutover from one version of an application to another on a per country basis without requiring shut-down of the application server.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein providing the online cutover from one version to another further comprises providing the cutover via use of forwarding and drain servlet filters that enable forwarding of new session requests to a new version of software, while at the same time supporting existing sessions on an old version of the software.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein providing the online cutover from one version to another further comprises providing the online cutover from one version to another via the use of the forwarding and drain servlet filters that look at all new session requests and determine for a particular business where each new session request should be forwarded based on a configuration file.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein providing the online cutover from one version to another via use of forwarding and drain servlet filters further comprises allowing a business to install the new version of software and allow existing sessions to run against the old version of software while directing each new session request to the new version without shut-down of the application server.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising integrating a model-view-control framework and companion open source framework that provides server-side page composition and layout with a concurrent parallel thread package.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein integrating the model-view-control framework and companion open source framework with the concurrent parallel thread package further comprises providing the integration in a manner such that multiple portlets are allowed to be spawned from a single home page request and to be processed so that each portlet runs in a thread safe way.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein integrating the model-view-control framework and companion open source framework with the concurrent parallel thread package further comprises providing each portlet with its own cloned copy of request and response objects, thereby allowing each portlet to run in a thread safe way even with non-thread safe implementations of request/response objects.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing security protection for all home page requests via use of a site entrance filter for filtering all requests and by providing automatic authorization role provisioning, authorization checks, and cross-site scripting checks.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the site entrance filter is a central filter that checks all requests for new sessions and insures that all new session requests are provided with a new session object and a default profile object with the role set to a lowest entitled user.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the site entrance filter insures that all requests undergo an authorization check based at least in part on the user role.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the site entrance filter insures that all requests call out to an authorization check to confirm a user'"'"'s level of authorization.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising integrating the authentication application into a servlet container.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising providing overload protection for any of the applications whose performance has exceeded pre-defined levels.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein providing the overload protection further comprises using a site entrance filter to refuse new session requests if a baseline performance of a system has exceeded pre-defined levels

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically disabling a portlet from a home page if the portlet exceeds pre-defined levels.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein automatically disabling the portlet further comprises providing an orderly shut off or disabling of a portlet if individual functions exceed the pre-defined levels.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein automatically disabling the portlets further comprises automatically disabling and taking the portlet out of rotation for which a pre-determined time to gather data from external sources is exceeded, while allowing a system to continue running for a user.

26. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing sequence protection of any of the applications without requiring overt procedural code in the application.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein providing sequence protection further comprises extending action mappings to allow declaring that an action mapping is an entry point whereby an attempt to access an action mapping that is not marked as an entry point for which there is no existing subappcontext is automatically refused.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein providing sequence protection further comprises declaring that every action mapping is sequence protected.

29. The method of claim 27, wherein a token embodied in a hidden field and set via a custom tag must be present in order to access the action mapping.

30. The method of claim 1, further comprising informing a user who accesses one of the applications at a client browser and attempts to navigate away from an in-process transaction that the transaction is incomplete.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein informing the user that the transaction is incomplete further comprises one of warning the user that the transaction is incomplete and prohibiting the user from navigating away from the incomplete transaction.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein warning the user that the transaction is incomplete further comprises declaring by an application that a user should be warned if the user attempts to navigate away from a currently incomplete transaction via the use of custom tags.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein prohibiting the user from navigating away from the incomplete transaction further comprises declaring by an application that a user should be prohibited from navigating away from a currently incomplete transaction at pre-determined commit points in a screen sequence via the use of custom tags.

34. The method of claim 1, further comprising allowing expression of variability of at least one of the business rules via use of standard business rules methods.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein allowing the expression of variability of business rules via use of standard business rules methods further comprises allowing standard questions to be asked of business objects via the business rule methods

36. The method of claim 35, wherein allowing the expression of variability of business rules via use of standard business rules methods further comprises embodying answers to the standard questions offline in the form of XML data whose content is read-in, transformed and embedded or cached in business objects.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein allowing the expression of variability of business rules via use of standard business rules methods further comprises organizing the business rule objects in terms of business, product and transaction hierarchy, whereby business rules can be addressed at a granularity of individual transactions within a product and business structure

38. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a separation from control and model in a model-view-controller framework for at least the on-line banking application via the use of stateless model helpers that provide discrete functionality that is independent of the sequence of an application and independent of other model helpers.

39. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing automatic generation of message objects and transforms using XML schema definitions, JAXB, and message transformation rules from a global abstract interface to a specific regional interface in support of at least the on-line banking application.

40. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a connectivity to external banking hosts via use of standard JCA connector framework in support of at least the on-line banking application.

41. A system for implementing on-line financial institution services via a single physical and logical platform, comprising:

a plurality of applications consisting at least in part of on-line banking, alert, portal building, and authentication applications running on the same application server for a plurality of businesses, while allowing each of the businesses an option to select different software versions independent of one another;

a shared set of facilities for use by all of the applications consisting at least in part of languages, business rules, navigation, personalization, content, customization, compositing, logging, authentication, authorization, and security services;

means for providing content for the applications consisting at least in part of language, business rules, and personalization via a business hierarchy database structure; and

means for caching the content in memory to eliminate database access and decrease response time.

42. The system of claim 41, further comprising means for providing an orderly, online cutover from one version of an application to another on a per country basis without requiring shut-down of the application server.

43. The system of claim 42, further comprising means for integrating a model-view-control framework and a companion open source framework that provides server-side page composition and layout with a concurrent parallel thread package.

44. The system of claim 43, further comprising means for providing security protection for all home page requests via use of a site entrance filter for filtering all requests and by providing automatic authorization role provisioning, authorization checks, and cross-site scripting checks.

45. The system of claim 44, further comprising means for integrating the authentication application into a servlet container.

46. The system of claim 45, further comprising overload protection means for any of the applications whose performance has exceeded pre-defined levels.

47. The system of claim 46, further comprising means for automatically disabling a portlet from a home page if the portlet exceeds pre-defined levels.

48. The system of claim 47, further comprising means for providing sequence protection of any of the applications without a need for overt procedural code in the application.

49. The system of claim 48, further comprising means for informing or prohibiting a user who accesses an application at a client browser from abandoning an in-process transaction.

50. The system of claim 49, further comprising means for allowing expression of variability of at least one of the business rules via use of standard business rules methods.

51. The system of claim 50, further comprising means for providing a clean separation from control and model in a model-view-controller framework for at least the on-line banking application via the use of stateless model helpers that provide discrete functionality that is independent of a sequence of the application and independent of other model helpers.

52. The system of claim 51, further comprising means for automatically generating message objects and transforms using XML schema definitions, JAXB, and message transformation rules from a global abstract interface to a specific regional interface in support of at least the on-line banking application.

53. The system of claim 52, further comprising means for providing a connectivity to external banking hosts via use of standard JCA connector framework in support of at least the on-line banking application.