Distributed, object oriented global trade finance system with imbedded imaging and work flow and reference data

• US 6,772,131 B1
• Filed: 02/01/1999
• Issued: 08/03/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: CGI Technologies and Solutions Incorporated (CGI Group)
• Original Assignee: American Management Systems, Incorporated (CGI, Inc.)
• Inventors: Carden, Ronald W., Francis, James G.
• Primary Examiner(s): PWU, JEFFREY C
• Application Number:
  US09/241,301
• Time in Patent Office: 2,010 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35, 705/37, 705/39, 705/42, 709/300, 709/302, 395/239
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• 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 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

An object oriented trade finance system designed to support a large-scale transactional work flow on a global basis. The system is designed to support imbedded imaging technology for the scanning, storage and retrieval of all documents coming into and going out of the system. The system allows for the distribution of processing across geographic boundaries while also providing the ability to perform high-volume transaction processing. The system supports all facets of the trade finance business. The trade finance system is organized into a central and distributed location hardware architecture with a three tier software architecture. Work flow distribution rules are used to distribute the work items to a work item list for work group that can be distributed geographically in different time zones. The rules also redistribute the work items as needed to allow processing to continue when the originally assigned workgroup has reached an end of its business day.

Claims

1. An international trade finance system handling international trade finance transactions, comprising:

geographically remote back office commercial trade finance spoke user access locations providing access to the transaction financier staff and to international commercial trade finance work items corresponding to the trade commerce transaction financing and comprising issuances, advisements, amendments and payments; and

a single consolidated centralized hub processing location having one or more computers processing all the commercial trade finance work items across multiple bank organizations, coupled to said remote locations and consolidating back office processing of the work items in real-time with constant processing availability by using workflow routing between the locations as they become available for handling the work items and using a consolidated computer database in processing the work items, the database having multiple base currencies each base currency corresponding to a country source of the transactions.

2. An international trade finance system handling international trade commerce transaction financing, comprising:

remote spoke user access locations providing access to international trade finance work items comprising issuances, advisements, amendments and payments, and located in different time zones; and

a single consolidated hub processing location having one or more computers coupled to said remote locations and providing back office processing of the work items across multiple bank organizations, across the different time zones in real-time using a consolidated computer database in processing the work item, the database having multiple base currencies, each base currency corresponding to a country source of the transactions.

3. An international trade finance system handling international trade commerce transaction financing, comprising:

a user interface providing access to international trade finance work items comprising issuances, advisements, amendments and payments and a document image related to the work item to the transaction financier staff; and

a single consolidated processing system providing back office processing of the work item across multiple bank organizations in real-time and providing the image of the document with constant processing and image availability using a consolidated database in processing the work item, the database having multiple base currencies, each base currency corresponding to a country source of the transactions.

4. An international trade finance system handling international trade commerce transaction financing, comprising:

a user interface providing access to international trade finance work items comprising issuances, advisements, amendments, and payments to the transaction financier staff; and

a single consolidated processing system providing twenty-four hour seven day a week back office processing capability for the work item across multiple bank organizations in real-time using a consolidated database in processing the work item, the database having multiple base currencies, each base currency corresponding to a country source of the transactions.

5. A system as recited in claim 4, wherein work item processing is referenced to a global system time.

6. An international trade finance system handling international trade commerce transaction financing, comprising:

a user interface providing access to international trade finance work items comprising issuances, advisements, amendments, and payments; and

a consolidated processing system providing constant processing availability of back office processing of the work item across multiple bank organizations in real-time using business objects having an object hierarchy with common code in ancestor objects, reusable service objects providing services only, reusable component objects and hooks within the objects allowing addition of code without altering the common code and using a consolidated database in processing the work item.

7. An international trade finance system handling trade commerce transaction financing, comprising:

geographically distributed processing locations, each location including user work stations having a trade finance interface initiating execution of a business object; and

a consolidated central processing location coupled to said distributed locations and including an application server holding and executing the business object to perform back office trade finance business logic for processing international trade finance transactions across multiple bank organizations in real-time responsive to initiation by the work stations with constant processing availability using a consolidated database in processing;

the database having base currencies corresponding to country sources of the transactions.

8. A system as recited in claim 7, wherein said business object communicates with a consolidated database server for data required by the business logic.

9. A system as recited in claim 7, wherein one of the work stations executes a business object.

10. A system as recited in claim 7, wherein a communication object communicates between the interface and the business object.

11. A system as recited in claim 7, wherein workers at different geographic locations have different work periods and said central processing location reassigning work items to the different locations responsive to the periods.

12. A system as recited in claim 7, wherein the business logic is performed relative to a trade instrument identified on said interface, the trade instrument having a trade document associated therewith and said system further comprising an image server storing an image of the document and a link to the instrument, allowing the interface to retrieve the image from the instrument.

13. A system as recited in claim 7, further comprising connection and transport objects providing communication between said interface and said business object.

14. A system as recited in claim 7, wherein said interface includes only input output logic.

15. A system as recited in claims 7, further comprising an object communication service requesting attribute values for fields of a window of said interface.

16. A system as recited in claim 7, further comprising an attribute manager accessing an attribute object for an attribute of the business object.

17. A trade finance system handling trade commerce transaction financing, comprising:

geographically distributed processing locations, each location located in a different time zone and including user work stations having a trade finance interface initiating execution of a business object, and providing access to trade finance work items comprising issuances, advisements, amendments and payments and a document image related to the work item and an instrument to the transaction financier staff;

a consolidated central processing location coupled to said distributed locations and consolidating back office processing of the work items using a consolidated database in processing the work items and across the different time zones providing twenty-four hour seven day a week processing by assigning the work items to workers at different geographic locations having different work periods and providing the image of the document with constant processing and image availability items comprising issuances, advisements, amendments, and payments, using a work flow distribution rules table and a rollover rules table with a rule making process and comprising;

an application server holding and executing the business object to perform trade finance business logic responsive to initiation by the work stations, a communication object communicating between the interface and the business object, and an attribute manager accessing an attribute object for an attribute of the business object;

a database server storing a consolidated database comprising data required by the business logic and having multiple base currencies; and

an image server storing an image of the document and a link to the instrument, allowing the interface to retrieve the image from the instrument, the document or the work item.