SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING GOODS AND SERVICES BASED ON ACCRUED BUT UNPAID EARNINGS

• US 20100179887A1
• Filed: 01/09/2010
• Published: 07/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Ganart Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Ganart Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: CACHERIA, ANTHONY M. III, EDWARDS, WEBB, MCHUGH, WAYNE THOMAS, HOOKER, DAVID, JENKINS, BARRETT, HOLBROOK, ARTHUR MARTIN, GLOVER, KRISTOPHER
• Application Number:
  US12/684,932
• Publication Number:
  US 20100179887A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1053 Employment or hiring
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1057 Benefits or employee welfare, e.g. insurance, holiday or retirement packages
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1091 Recording time for administrative or management purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/042 characterized in that the payment protocol involves at least one cheque
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/065 using e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/08 Payment architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/105 involving programming of a portable memory device, e.g. IC cards, "electronic purses"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/1085 involving automatic teller machines [ATMs]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/18 involving self-service terminals [SST], vending machines, kiosks or multimedia terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/125 Finance or payroll

Abstract

A system for enabling employees to utilize accrued and unpaid earnings to obtain externally provided goods and services includes at least one employee access node located in an employer facility and having physical resources for interfacing with subscribing employees to transfer value on the behalf thereof, a transaction processor for facilitating transfer of value on behalf of the subscribing employees; and physical resource interfaces associated with the physical resources to enable subscribing employees to input identification information, a data store a data store for storing configurations associated with providers and/or goods and services, a local server for communicating with the at least one employee access node to operate in conjunction therewith to facilitate the transfer of value on behalf of the given subscribing employee and a central processing center including one or more provider communications interfaces enabling the central processing center to communicate with a third party provider of goods or services and to facilitate a transfer of value to the third party provider on behalf of the given subscribing employee.

Claims

1. A system for enabling employees to utilize accrued and unpaid earnings to obtain externally provided goods and services, the employees subscribing to the system to obtain such access, comprising:

at least one employee access node located in an employer facility, the employee access node having therewith;

physical resources associated with the employee access node for interfacing with subscribing employees to transfer value on the behalf thereof; and

a transaction processor for facilitating transfer of value on behalf of the subscribing employees;

a local server for communicating with the at least one employee access node to operate in conjunction therewith to facilitate a value transfer financial transaction and including;

a database including a list of subscribing employees and available accrued and unpaid earnings for at least some of the subscribing employees;

a local server transaction processor for interfacing with the at least one employee access node and to access the database to determine the available accrued and unpaid earnings for a given one of the subscribing employees, accessing the employee access node to transfer value on behalf of the given one of the subscribing employees in exchange for an externally provided goods or services and debiting the available and unpaid earnings of the given employee on the database; and

a central processing center including one or more provider communications interfaces enabling the central processing center to communicate with third party providers of goods or services, a local server communication interface enabling the central processing center to communicate with the local server and operating in conjunction with the local server and an employee access node to execute a predetermined sequence of actions to enable a subscribing employee to transfer value to a third party provider in exchange for a selected goods or services based upon the subscribing employee'"'"'s accrued and unpaid earnings.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the employee access node further comprises a data store for storing configurations, the configurations identifying the externally provided goods and services that are available to a subscribing employee with the employee access node.

3. The system of claim 2 where a plurality of configurations are stored in the data store, each associated with one of the externally provided goods and services and one or more of the available physical resources.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein multiple ones of configurations are interfaced with a given available physical resource to enable a subscribing employee to interface with the employee access node to access the local server, processing center and predetermined third party providers of goods and services.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the local server includes a communications interface with an employer processor having access to a employer database including records of accrued and unpaid earnings for subscribing employees, the interface enabling download of the records of accrued and unpaid earnings for subscribing employees from the employee processor and database to the local service transaction processor and database.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the download of records of accrued and unpaid earnings for subscribing employees is one of a push type data transfer initiated by the employer processor at predetermined time intervals or a pull type data transfer initiated by the employer processor at predetermined time intervals.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein a subscribing employee'"'"'s accrued and unpaid earnings include earning due the subscribing employee prior to the end of a payroll period but before the earning have been disbursed to the subscribing employee.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein a subscribing employee'"'"'s accrued and unpaid earnings include earnings due the subscribing employee the end of a payroll period but before the earnings have been disbursed to the subscribing employee.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein a subscribing employee'"'"'s accrued and unpaid earnings include earnings due the employee on a predetermined date prior to the end of a payroll period but before the earnings have been disbursed to the subscribing employee.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the physical resources associated with the employee access node include one or more of a display, a keyboard, a touch screen, a biometric scanner and a card reader.

11. A system for enabling employees to utilize accrued and unpaid earnings to obtain externally provided goods and services, the employees subscribing to the system to obtain such access, comprising:

at least one employee access node located in an employer facility, the employee access node having associated therewith;

physical resources for interfacing with subscribing employees to transfer value on the behalf thereof, the physical resources including a display and at least one data input device;

a transaction processor for facilitating transfer of value on behalf of the subscribing employees; and

physical resource interfaces associated with the physical resources to enable subscribing employees to input identification information; and

a data store for storing configurations, the configurations identifying the externally provided goods and services that are available to a subscribing employee with the employee access node and defining a predetermined sequence of actions to transfer value to a third party provider on behalf of a given subscribing employee in exchange for selected goods or services;

a local server for communicating with the at least one employee access node to operate in conjunction therewith to facilitate the transfer of value on behalf of the given subscribing employee and including;

a database including a list of subscribing employees and available accrued and unpaid earning for at least some of the subscribing employees;

a local server transaction processor for interfacing with the at least one employee access node and to access the database to determine the available accrued and unpaid earnings for a given one of the subscribing employees, transmitting the given subscribing employee'"'"'s available accrued and unpaid earnings to the employee access node for display to the given subscribing employee, accessing the employee access node transfer value on behalf of the given one of the subscribing employees, and debiting the available and unpaid earnings of the given employee on the database; and

a central processing center including one or more provider communications interfaces enabling the central processing center to communicate with a third party provider of goods or services and to facilitate a transfer of value to the third party provider on behalf of the given subscribing employee.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the processing center is operative to receive and store instructions for a predetermined sequence of actions from third party providers, transmit the instructions through the local server to employee access node wherein a portion of the instructions are executed by the employee access node, the local server and the processing center to complete a transaction including a transfer of value on behalf of a given subscribing employee to a selected one of the third party provider in exchange for goods or services.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein the local server includes a communications interface with an employer processor having access to a employer database including records of accrued and unpaid earnings for subscribing employees, the interface enabling download of the records of accrued and unpaid earnings for subscribing employees from the employee processor and database to the local service transaction processor and database.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the download of records of accrued and unpaid earnings for subscribing employees is one of a push type data transfer initiated by the employer processor at predetermined time intervals or a pull type data transfer initiated by the employer processor at predetermined time intervals.

15. The system of claim 11 wherein the data store includes a series of instructions for opening an identity session for a given one of subscribing employees and wherein the subscribing employee may conduct a series of value transfer transactions within a single identity session.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the transaction processor may access multiple configurations associated with different ones of third party providers and execute at least some of the predetermined actions defined thereby within a single identity session to conduct a series of value transfer transactions within a single identity session on behalf of a subscribing employee.

17. The system of claim 11 wherein the physical resources associated with the employee access node further include one or more of a keyboard, a touch screen, a biometric scanner, a card reader, a printer, a currency dispenser and a stored value card reader.

18. The system of claim 11 wherein each of the employee access nodes utilizes configuration information for a user selected one of third party providers to operate required ones of the physical resources according to a predetermined sequence of actions defined by the configuration information for the selected provider to acquire information necessary to conduct a value transfer transaction.