Simple On-Line Payments Facility

• US 20070038561A1
• Filed: 06/16/2006
• Published: 02/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wells Fargo Bank NA (Wells Fargo & Company)
• Original Assignee: Wells Fargo Bank NA (Wells Fargo & Company)
• Inventors: Vaishampayan, Ajay, Dailey, Timothy, Gann, Candie, Coffing, Timothy, Riter, Nancy, Clark, Aric, Vancini, Adam
• Granted Patent: US 7,814,017 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/39
• 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 20/105 involving programming of a portable memory device, e.g. IC cards, "electronic purses"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/1085 involving automatic teller machines [ATMs]
• 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

Abstract

The invention provides a payment interface that is both simple and powerful: one that supports multiple users per customer, with proper roles and financial controls; that hides the details of the underlying payment system(s) and automatically routes payments to the appropriate system; that allows the user to create, save, and schedule groups of payments, where those groups are independent of grouping capabilities of the underlying payment system(s); that provides notification of important events to users and payment recipients; and that automatically processes and takes proper action when it encounters exception conditions.

Claims

1. A method for real-time enrollment in a system for transferring funds, said method comprising:

enrolling a customer having a customer account on-line in a banking system for transferring funds; and

permitting the customer to add counterparty accounts immediately after enrolling the customer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said enrolling includes:

accepting customer account information and counterparty account information; and

validating customer account information.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

permitting the customer to transfer funds from the customer account to a counterparty after counterparty account verification.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

permitting the customer to request a debit origination from the counterparty after counterparty account verification.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein said customer account includes a billing account number and a funding account number.

6. The method of claim 1, where said counterparty account is an internal counterparty account.

7. The method of claim 1, where said counterparty account is an external counterparty account.

8. An on-line banking method for correcting errors in the transfer of funds from a customer account to a counterparty account, said method comprising:

receiving a return indicator from a failed transfer of funds by the customer to the counterparty account, where the transfer was performed by the on-line banking system;

providing a notification via e-mail of said failed transfer to the customer; and

providing, to the customer, suggested changes to instructions for the failed transfer for successfully transferring funds.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising accessing a look-up table including a list of return indicators and corresponding suggested changes to instructions.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising verifying that the suggested changes have been implemented by the customer.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising preventing transfers from the customer account until said suggested changes have been implemented by the customer.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein said return indicator includes details of a failure type.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein said return indicators is returned from an Automated Clearing House transfer of funds.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising returning funds to the customer account.

15. A method to allow a customer to transfer funds to a counterparty account using an on-line banking system, said method comprising:

accepting characteristics of one or more counterparty accounts;

accepting characteristics of the transferring of funds corresponding to each of the one or more counterparty accounts, including a time by which the funds are to be transferred;

determining an electronic system to transfer funds to each of the one or more counterparty accounts based on the accepted characteristics;

determining instructions for transferring funds over said determined electronic system for transferring funds to each counterparty accounts; and

providing said determined instructions to said determined electronic system.

16. The method of claim 15, where said characteristics of said counterparty accounts include a routing number, an account number, and an account type.

17. The method of claim 16, where said characteristics of said counterparty accounts further include a counterparty country.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising sending a pre-note to establish correct routing.

19. The method of claim 15, where said electronic system includes one or more of an internal transfer, an ACH transfer, and a Fedwire transfer.

20. The method of claim 15, where said electronic system includes one or more of an internal transfer, an ACH transfer, a Fedwire transfer, and a SWIFT transfer.