System and Methods for Purchase Reward Investment Communities

• US 20120123849A1
• Filed: 01/25/2012
• Published: 05/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Capital One Services LLC (Capital One Financial Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Capital One Financial Corporation
• Inventors: ARMSTRONG, Michael D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,386,307 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.33
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0208 Trade or exchange of goods or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0216 Investment accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0233 Method of redeeming a frequent usage reward
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

Purchase rewards account holders accumulate rewards currency. A network-based investment management system allows account holders to purchase shares in investments using reward currency. When all the shares for a particular investment have been purchased, the underlying investment is acquired. Account holders owning shares in an investment may sell shares to other account holders through system. Account holders are thereby able to invest their rewards dollars in investments typically requiring cash or cash equivalents and to grow their rewards currency.

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. A network-based system for allowing reward recipients to invest their rewards collectively comprising:

one or more computer processors programmed to;

provide over one or more computer networks reward information to a plurality of reward recipients, the reward information for each reward recipient comprising a reward balance associated with at least one financial account held by the reward recipient;

store information corresponding to a plurality of investments, each investment having a number of available shares, wherein each share of each investment in the plurality of investments represents a portion of a total purchase price of the respective investment, and wherein

an investment is open if it has at least one available share, and

an investment is closed if it has zero available shares;

generate one or more user interfaces on a computer display, the one or more user interfaces configured to permit reward recipients to make a selection to use at least a portion of their reward balance that is less than the total of their reward balance to be allocated shares of one or more open investments, and to permit reward recipients to make a selection to use at least a portion of their reward balance that is less than the total of their reward balance to be allocated shares of one or more closed investments from other reward recipients owning shares of the one or more closed investments; and

one or more storage devices that store the information corresponding to the plurality of investments.

22. The system according to claim 21, wherein the one or more computer processors are further programmed to store, for each investment, an underlying value of the investment.

23. The system according to claim 22, wherein the one or more computer processors are further programmed to determine the number of available shares and a share price for each of the plurality of investments, the share price being based on the underlying value of the respective investment and being expressed in terms of an amount of reward balance per share.

24. The system according to claim 23, wherein the one or more computer processors are further programmed to maintain a current per share price for each closed investment that is updated to reflect changes in the investment.

25. The system according to claim 21, wherein the one or more user interfaces are further configured to permit reward recipients having been allocated one or more shares of a closed investment to make a selection to sell their allocated shares to other reward recipients.

26. The system according to claim 21, wherein the one or more computer processors are further programmed to generate a performance report for each closed investment every financial reporting period, wherein a financial reporting period is at least one period selected from the group consisting of a day, a week, a month, a quarter, and a year.