Method and system for notifying customers of transaction opportunities

• US 8,032,453 B2
• Filed: 04/03/2006
• Issued: 10/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citicorp Credit Services Incorporated (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Citicorp Development Center Incorporated (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Inventors: Tata, Anand, Markarian, Grigor, Vaidyanathan, Ramadurai, Ahuja, Arun, Pan, Joe, Tompkins, Peter
• Primary Examiner(s): Champagne; Luna
• Application Number:
  US11/395,162
• Publication Number:
  US 20070174448A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,010 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/00 Payment architectures, schemes or protocols apparatus for performing or posting payment transactions G07F7/08, G07F19/00; electronic cash registers G07G1/12
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/382 insuring higher security of transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/403 Solvency checks
• 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

A standalone notification system, including a notification server which generates electronic messages for alerting customers of potentially fraudulent activity on one or more of their financial accounts. Alternatively, or in addition thereto, the notification system may be used to forward transaction code(s) to customers for verification of a request for high risk transaction(s) with respect to a customer'"'"'s financial account. The transaction code is generated in response to a high risk transaction request and sent to through an identified customer notification means, e.g., e-mail, short message service (“SMS”), facsimile, mobile phone, telephone, etc. The customer must enter the transaction code within a predetermined amount of time in order to verify the high-risk transaction request.

Claims

1. An at least partially computer-implemented method for notifying a customer of an event related to at least one financial account of the customer:

receiving, by a computer software process executing on a computer hardware device of a notification system hosted by a financial institution holding at least one financial account and at least one investment instrument of the customer, at least one instruction from a customer enrolled in the notification system,

wherein the at least one instruction directs the notification system to alert the customer upon the occurrence of an event relating to an investment instrument and perform a financial transaction related to the investment instrument by accessing the at least one financial account, and

wherein, upon the occurrence of the event, the notification system alerts the enrolled customer of the event and performs the transaction by accessing the at least one financial account;

receiving account activity information for the at least one financial account into a computer software process executing on the computer hardware device of the notification system;

determining by another computer software process executing on the computer hardware device if the account activity information is indicative of potential fraud on the at least one financial account immediately after receiving said account activity information;

determining by a further computer software process executing on the computer hardware device the status of the customer as being either enrolled in the notification system or not enrolled in the notification system immediately after determining that said account activity information is indicative of potential fraud;

if it is determined that the customer is enrolled in the notification system, ascertaining by an additional computer software process executing on the computer hardware device the customer'"'"'s preferred method of notification, formulating an alert message identifying the account activity information that is indicative of potential fraud and sending the alert message to the customer via the preferred method of notification immediately after determining said status of the customer as being enrolled in the notification system; and

if it is determined that the customer is not enrolled in the notification system, determining by still another computer software process executing on the computer hardware device at least one method of notifying the customer based on customer data received at the notification system, formulating an alert message identifying the account activity information that is indicative of potential fraud and sending the alert message to the customer via the at least one identified method of notification immediately after determining said status of the customer as being not enrolled in the notification system.

2. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein account activity information indicative of potential fraud includes:

attempted execution of high value transactions;

execution of high value transactions;

attempted addition of a new payee;

addition of a new payee;

attempted use of a previously unused transaction system;

use of a previously unused transaction system.

3. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one method of notifying the customer is selected from the group consisting of e-mail, HTML (hypertext mark-up language), pager, customer service representative call, mobile phone text messaging, and XML (extensible mark-up language), facsimile, and short message service.

4. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein attributes of the high value transaction vary depending on historical account data of the customer.

5. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein customer data received at the notification system is received from both financial institution sources and external sources.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification system performs the transaction by accessing the at least one financial account only after receiving a second instruction from the customer.