ONLINE CREDIT CARD PRESCREEN SYSTEMS AND METHODS

• US 20080059317A1
• Filed: 09/29/2006
• Published: 03/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CPL Assets LLC
• Original Assignee: Metareward, Inc. (Experian plc)
• Inventors: Rodenbusch, Richard, Mendelovich, Shawn, Chandran, Rohan
• Granted Patent: US 8,027,888 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/16
• CPC Class Codes: A61P 37/00 Drugs for immunological or allergic disorders
• CPC Class Codes: A61P 37/06 Immunosuppressants, e.g. drugs for graft rejection
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

In one embodiment, prescreened credit card offers, which are associated with credit cards that a particular borrower would be accepted upon application with the respective issuer, are provided to a borrower via a prescreen provider website and/or a referrer website. In one embodiment, a referrer provides borrower information to a prescreen provider. The prescreen provider initiates and/or performs a prescreening process, which includes accessing credit related information regarding the borrower. The prescreen provider matches the borrower with one or more credit cards that the borrower would like be accepted for, and provides a prescreened offer document to the referrer, or an Internet address of the prescreened offer document. The referrer may then provide the borrower with the prescreened credit card offers by presenting the prescreened offer document to the borrower. The prescreened credit card offers may additionally be filtered according to issuer criteria, referrer criteria, and/or borrower preferences.

Claims

1. A method of prescreening a potential borrower for each of a plurality of credit card offers, the plurality of credit card offers comprising at least a first credit card offer associated with a first lender and a second credit card offer associated with a second lender, the method comprising:

presenting a browser-viewable document to a borrower, the browser-viewable document comprising information entry fields for entry of borrower information by the borrower, wherein the borrower information comprises a first name, a last name, and one or more of;

a street address, a city, a state, and a zip code;

receiving the borrower information via one or more networks;

transmitting the borrower information to a prescreened offer source configured to access credit data related to the borrower and determine zero or more prescreened credit card offers indicating credit cards that the borrower would likely be accepted for by the respective issuer;

receiving from the prescreened offer source information regarding the zero or more prescreened credit card offers;

applying at least one filter to each of the prescreened credit card offers, the at least one filter selected from the group comprising;

a filter comprising geographic criteria, a filter comprising issuer criteria, a filter comprising borrower preferences;

if one or more prescreened credit card offers are received, generating a browser-viewable prescreened offer document comprising information regarding at least one of the prescreened credit card offers, the prescreened offer document comprising a link associated with each prescreened offer, wherein the links are associated with browser-viewable documents that allow the borrower to apply for the respective prescreened offer, and presenting the prescreened offer document to the borrower;

if zero prescreened credit card offers are received, generating a browser-viewable invitation to apply document comprising information regarding one or more invitations to apply for credit cards, and presenting the invitation to apply document to the borrower.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the prescreened result document comprises multiple pages that are separately viewable in a browser.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the prescreened offer source is configured to:

access data associated with the borrower;

access acceptance criteria for each of a plurality of available credit cards offered by at least two different credit card issuers; and

compare the data to the acceptance criteria for each of the plurality of available credit cards in order to determine one or more credit cards that would likely be issued to the borrower.

4. A method of determining whether a borrower'"'"'s application for each of a plurality of credit card offers will likely be accepted by respective issuers of the credit cards in response to application for the respective credit card by a borrower, the method comprising:

receiving from a referrer a request to provide one or more prescreened credit card offers to a borrower;

determining a first subset of the plurality of credit card offers, wherein the first subset comprises credit card offers that have been selected by the referrer;

transmitting a prescreening request to a prescreened offer source, the prescreening request comprising information regarding the borrower;

receiving a second subset of credit card offers from the prescreened offer source, wherein the second subset comprises credit card offers from the first subset that are likely to be granted by an issuer associated with the respective credit card offers;

ranking the second subset of credit card offers based at least partly on a fee paid by the respective issuer for presenting the borrower with information regarding the respective credit card offers; and

transmitting information regarding at least a highest ranked credit card offer to the referrer.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein a prescreen provider performs each of the steps and comprises the referrer.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein a third-party comprises the referrer.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the information regarding at least a highest ranked credit card offer comprises an HTML document.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the information is in a format that is viewable on at least one of:

desktop computer, a laptop computer, a cell phone, a personal digital assistant, a kiosk, and an audio player.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the information is viewable on a computing device at a point-of-sale for one or more goods or services.

10. A prescreening system comprising:

a user interface that is viewable by a computing device in communication with the Internet, the user interface comprising one or more criteria fields associated with characteristics of credit cards, wherein in response to selection of criteria in the one or more criteria fields, the user interface is updated with information regarding one or more invitations to apply for credit card offers that match the selected criteria;

a prescreen module for receiving borrower information entered into the user interface via the computing device;

a prescreened offer source for accessing credit data associated with the borrower information and determining, based at least on the credit data, one or more credit cards for which the borrower would likely be accepted; and

a presentation module for generating a document comprising information regarding the one or more credit cards.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein a third party website comprises the user interface.

12. A method of providing one or more prescreened credit card offers to a borrower via a third party referrer website, the method comprising:

receiving borrower information from a referrer, the referrer operating a referrer website;

determining one or more credit card offers for which the borrower would likely be accepted;

generating a prescreened offer document identifying the one or more credit card offers; and

providing a location of the prescreened offer document to the third party.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the prescreened offer document comprises one or more of an HTML document and an XML document.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the borrower information comprises a first name, a last name, and a zip code.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the borrower information comprises a first name, a last name, and a street address.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the prescreened offer document is displayed to the borrower as part of the referrer website.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the prescreened offer document comprises a link for each of the prescreened offers that directs the borrower to another website that allows the borrower to apply for the respected credit card.

18. A method of presenting one or more prescreened credit card offers to a customer, the method comprising:

receiving customer information regarding the customer, the customer information comprising one or more of a first name, last name, residence address, city, state, and zip code;

transmitting the customer information to a prescreen provider;

receiving from the prescreen provider a location of a prescreened offer document, the prescreened offer document identifying one or more credit card offers for which the customer would likely be accepted; and

presenting the prescreened offer document to the customer.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the customer information is received via a user interface presented to the customer in an Internet browser.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the prescreened offer document comprises an HTML document.