Financial Account Information Management and Auditing

• US 20080243715A1
• Filed: 10/03/2007
• Published: 10/02/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Original Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Inventors: Andersen, David M., Stellhorn, David W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,099,345 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/36R
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 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 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A database-driven software application may be provided that is configured to keep a record of mainframe activity for various financial transactions and provide relationships between various transactional features. The information of these financial transactions may originate from a single system in a single data format or may be integrated into a single consistent format from a plurality of systems in a plurality of formats. Such an application may enable the reporting of anomalous events and/or the review of activities conducted by a financial associate (e.g., an employee of the financial institution) and/or those impacting a specific customer or account. The system may operate by parsing daily feeds of raw mainframe logs and extracting relevant details and placing information about each transaction in a data warehouse.

Claims

1. In a financial transaction management system, a method comprising:

storing in a first database first data representing a plurality of financial transactions;

storing in a second database second data referencing the first data; and

retrieving data representing one of the financial transactions from the first database using the second database as a dictionary.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first database stores the data in compressed form.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing in the second database data representing an offset of each of the financial transactions within an overall file, wherein retrieving comprises retrieving the data representing the one of the financial transactions at a location in the first database that depends upon the offset.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

compressing the first data, wherein storing the first data includes storing the first data as the compressed first data; and

determining an offset of the compressed first data representing each financial transaction in the first database,

wherein storing the second data comprises storing the second data to represent the offsets.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein retrieving comprises:

querying the second database by an identifier of the one of the financial transactions; and

receiving a query result from the second database indicating the offset corresponding to the one of the financial transactions.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising decompressing the data representing the one of the financial transactions.

7. A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing a method, the method comprising:

storing in a first database first data representing a plurality of financial transactions;

storing in a second database second data referencing the first data; and

retrieving data representing one of the financial transactions from the first database using the second database as a dictionary.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the first database stores the data in compressed form.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, further comprising storing in the second database data representing an offset of each of the financial transactions within an overall file, wherein retrieving comprises retrieving the data representing the one of the financial transactions at a location in the first database that depends upon the offset.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, further comprising:

compressing the first data, wherein storing the first data includes storing the first data as the compressed first data; and

determining an offset of the compressed first data representing each financial transaction in the first database,

wherein storing the second data comprises storing the second data to represent the offsets.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein retrieving comprises:

querying the second database by an identifier of the one of the financial transactions; and

receiving a query result from the second database indicating the offset corresponding to the one of the financial transactions.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising decompressing the data representing the one of the financial transactions.

13. A method, comprising:

storing in a first database a plurality of data blocks each representing a different one of a plurality of financial transactions;

storing in a second database data representing aspects of the corresponding financial transaction of each of the data blocks, each subset further referencing a location of the corresponding one of the data blocks;

receiving a query including a criterion;

retrieving data from the second database based on the criterion and representing one of the locations; and

retrieving one of the data blocks from the first database found at the one of the locations.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the data blocks in the first database are stored in a compressed format, and wherein the method further comprises decompressing the data block retrieved from the first database.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising displaying both data from the data block retrieved from the first database and the data retrieved from the second database.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the aspects comprise a date of each of the financial transactions.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the aspects comprise at least one of the following:

a social security number and an account number associated with each of the financial transactions.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the aspects comprise a transaction code of each of the financial transactions.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein the criterion comprises an identification of at least one of the aspects.

20. A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions for performing a method, the method comprising:

storing in a first database a plurality of data blocks each representing a different one of a plurality of financial transactions;

storing in a second database data representing aspects of the corresponding financial transaction of each of the data blocks, each subset further referencing a location of the corresponding one of the data blocks;

receiving a query including a criterion;

retrieving data from the second database based on the criterion and representing one of the locations; and

retrieving one of the data blocks from the first database found at the one of the locations.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the data blocks in the first database are stored in a compressed format, and wherein the method further comprises decompressing the data block retrieved from the first database.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 20, further comprising displaying both data from the data block retrieved from the first database and the data retrieved from the second database.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the aspects comprise at least one of the following:

a social security number and an account number associated with each of the financial transactions.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the aspects comprise a transaction code of each of the financial transactions.

25. A method, comprising:

aggregating financial transaction data from a plurality of different financial institutions, the data from the different financial institutions being in different formats;

converting the data from the different financial institutions to a single common format; and

searching the converted data to find financial transactions.