Method and system for processing a financial transaction

• US 20060208059A1
• Filed: 03/21/2005
• Published: 09/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Netbank
• Original Assignee: Financial Technologies Limited
• Inventors: Cable, Thomas Lee, Ross, William Malcolm
• Granted Patent: US 7,246,741 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/379
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/042 characterized in that the payment protocol involves at least one cheque
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

Convenient, efficient, and cost-effective processing of a financial transaction. Banking customers can drop-off financial transaction requests at any of a plurality of geographically dispersed collection sites that operate on behalf of an expedited mail delivery service. Each collection site can aggregate received transaction requests into a package to be delivered to a transaction processing center via expedited mail delivery. Each transaction request can be contained within an envelope. Utilizing unique identifying insignias on each envelope and package, the location of each envelope and package can be tracked during the expedited mail delivery. Upon receipt, the transaction processing center can process each transaction request.

Claims

1. A system for processing a financial transaction comprising:

a plurality of non-check processing collection sites operated on behalf of an expedited mail delivery service provider, each site operable to;

receive at least one transaction request from one or more banking customers, each transaction request comprising a financial instrument and information about a requested banking transaction,

prepare a package comprising each transaction request collected during a predetermined time period, and

mail the package comprising the collected transaction requests via expedited mail delivery; and

a transaction processing center operable to;

receive each package from each of the collection sites, and

support the completion of the requested banking transaction associated with each transaction request by processing each transaction request for settlement by one of a clearinghouse and a bank of the respective requesting customer.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the requested banking transaction is one of a credit to a bank account of the respective requesting customer and a debit from a bank account of the respective requesting customer.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the collection sites collectively constitute a network of geographically dispersed service centers operating on behalf of the expedited mail delivery service provider.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction processing center is further operable for electronically processing each transaction request.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein each transaction request is contained within an envelope comprising a first unique insignia identifying the envelope, and wherein the package comprises a second unique insignia identifying the package.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the envelope is created by the respective requesting customer.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein each unique insignia comprises at least one of a barcode and an identification number.

8. The system of claim 5, further comprising a tracking engine operable to:

receive information regarding the package'"'"'s second unique insignia;

for each envelope, receive information regarding the first unique insignia;

associate each first unique insignia with the second unique insignia; and

track the location of each envelope during the expedited mail delivery by using the second unique insignia to track the location of the package.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the tracking engine is further operable to respond to queries regarding the location of each envelope.

10. A method for processing a financial transaction comprising the steps of:

collecting at a plurality of non-check processing collection sites at least one transaction request from one or more banking customers, the transaction request comprising a financial instrument and information about a requested banking transaction;

at each collection site, preparing a package comprising each transaction request collected during a predetermined time period;

mailing the package comprising the collected transaction requests from each collection site to a transaction processing center via expedited mail delivery; and

responsive to receiving each package from the collection sites at the transaction processing center, processing each transaction request for settlement by one of a clearinghouse and a bank of the respective customer.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the requested banking transaction is one of a credit to a bank account of the respective requesting customer and a debit from a bank account of the respective requesting customer.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of processing the transaction request for settlement comprises the steps of:

determining whether each financial instrument comprises a paper check;

upon a determination that the financial instrument comprises a paper check, creating an electronic image of the check; and

electronically sending the electronic image of the check to one of the clearinghouse and the bank of the respective requesting customer.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of processing the transaction request for settlement comprises the steps of:

determining whether each financial instrument comprises a paper check;

upon a determination that the financial instrument comprises a paper check, creating an electronic image of the check;

creating a substitute check from the electronic image; and

sending the substitute check to one of the clearinghouse and the bank of the respective requesting customer via mail delivery.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the step of processing the transaction request for settlement comprises the steps of:

determining whether each financial instrument comprises a paper check; and

upon a determination that the financial instrument comprises a paper check, sending the check to one of the clearinghouse and the bank of the respective requesting customer via mail delivery.

15. A method for processing a plurality of financial transactions comprising the steps of:

collecting at a plurality of non-check processing collection sites from one or more banking customers an envelope with a first unique insignia identifying the envelope, each envelope comprising a transaction request comprising a financial instrument and information about a requested banking transaction;

at each collection site, preparing a package with a second unique insignia identifying the package, the package comprising each envelope collected during a predetermined time period;

associating the first unique insignia of each envelope with the second unique insignia of the package;

mailing each package comprising the collected envelopes from each collection site to a transaction processing center via expedited mail delivery;

tracking the location of each envelope during the expedited mail delivery by using the second unique insignia to track the location of each package; and

processing each transaction request in response to receiving at the transaction processing center each package from the collection sites.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the requested banking transaction is one of a credit to a bank account of the respective requesting customer and a debit from a bank account of the respective requesting customer the requesting customer'"'"'s bank account.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising the step of,

responsive to receiving a query regarding the location of one or more of the envelopes during the expedited mail delivery, providing the location of each envelope.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one of the envelopes is created by the respective requesting customer.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein each unique insignia comprises at least one of a barcode and an identification number.