Transferring money using email

• US 9,536,232 B2
• Filed: 10/30/2013
• Issued: 01/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.)
• Inventors: Dorsey, Jack, Andersen, Robert, Lee, Bob, Grassadonia, Brian, Byttow, David M., Broyles, Austin
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Jagdish
• Application Number:
  US14/066,991
• Publication Number:
  US 20140279436A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,161 Days
• Field of Search: 705/39
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03

Abstract

Method, systems, and apparatus for receiving the email message from a sender device; identifying, using data processing apparatus of a payment service system, a sender email address, a service email address, and one or more recipient email addresses from the email message; identifying, for the sender email address, a sender financial account associated with the payment service system and, for each of the one or more recipient email addresses, a respective recipient financial account associated with the payment service system; identifying a payment amount from a subject or body of the email message; submitting a request to transfer, using the payment service system, the payment amount from the respective sender financial account to the respective recipient financial account.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method performed by a payment service system for transferring money from an account of a user to an account of a recipient using an email message, comprising:

receiving, by the payment service system, the email message, wherein the email message originates at an email application executing on a sender device associated with the user and is received from an email server, based on a payment service email address included in the email message, wherein the email message further includes a recipient email address associated with a recipient, wherein the email message is received from the email server at the payment service system based on the payment service email address included in the email message and at a recipient device associated with the recipient based on the recipient email address included in the email message;

determining, by a server at the payment service system, that the email message is indicative of a request for money to be transferred to the recipient associated with the recipient email address, based on a format of the email message and a presence of the payment service email address in the email message;

identifying, by the payment service system from the received email message, a sender email address associated with the user and the recipient email address associated with the recipient, said identifying including parsing fields of the email message to identify the sender email address and the recipient email address;

in response to identification of the sender email address and the recipient email address;

identifying, by the payment service system using stored data, a sender financial account of the payment service system associated with the sender email address of the email message; and

identifying, by the payment service system using the stored data, a recipient financial account of the payment service system associated with the recipient email address of the email message;

determining, by the payment service system, a payment amount by identifying text in a subject or a body of the email message that includes any of a currency type or an amount and designating the text as the payment amount;

sending an email confirmation to the sender email address, wherein the email confirmation includes a confirmation link to a network resource associated with the payment service system, wherein the confirmation link is encoded with one or both of the sender email address and the recipient email address, and wherein the user can select the confirmation link to confirm a transfer of the determined payment amount; and

responsive to receiving an indication that the user selected the confirmation link included in the email confirmation,

initiating, by the payment service system, the transfer of the determined payment amount from the sender financial account to the recipient financial account based on the email message originating at the sender device, wherein said initiating of the transfer includes communicating with computer systems of card issuers associated with the sender financial account and the recipient financial account to request the transfer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the payment service email address is specified on a carbon copy field of the email message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said parsing the fields of the email message comprises parsing, by the payment service system, a From field of the received email message to identify the sender email address.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said parsing the fields of the email message comprises parsing, by the payment service system, a To field of the received email message to identify the recipient email address.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the payment amount further includes:

identifying a plurality of recipient email addresses of the email message and a corresponding plurality of recipient financial accounts using the stored data;

identifying the payment amount based on the parsing of text in the subject or the body of the email message;

splitting the payment amount into a plurality of portions among each recipient email address of the plurality of recipient email addresses of the email message; and

initiating a transfer, for each recipient email address of the plurality of recipient email addresses, a particular portion of the plurality of portions to a respective recipient financial account of the plurality of recipient financial accounts.

6. A payment service system utilized by a payment service for offering money transfer capability by use of an email message, comprising:

a database storing data defining associations between multiple email addresses and multiple financial accounts, wherein at least one email address of the multiple email addresses belongs to one of multiple users of the payment service system, wherein the at least one email address is associated with at least one of the multiple financial accounts in a financial transaction conducted by said one user with another user, said another user being one of the multiple users or an unregistered user;

a computer processor coupled to the database and programmed to execute operations comprising;

receiving, by the payment service system, the email message, wherein the email message originates at an email application executing on a sender device associated with a user and is received from an email server, based on a payment service email address included in the email message, wherein the email message further includes a recipient email address associated with a recipient, wherein the email message is received from the email server at the payment service system based on the payment service email address included in the email message and at a recipient device associated with the recipient based on the recipient email address included in the email message;

determining, by a server at the payment service system, that the email message is indicative of a request for money to be transferred to the recipient associated with the recipient email address, based on a format of the email message and a presence of the payment service email address in the email message;

identifying, by the payment service system from the received email message, a sender email address associated with the user and the recipient email address associated with the recipient, said identifying including parsing fields of the email message to identify the sender email address and the recipient email address;

in response to identification of the sender email address and the recipient email address, automatically accessing the stored data from the database;

using the stored data;

identifying, by the payment service system, a sender financial account of the payment service system associated with the sender email address of the email message; and

identifying, by the payment service system, a recipient financial account of the payment service system associated with the recipient email address of the email message;

determining, by the payment service system, a payment amount by identifying text in a subject or a body of the email message that includes a currency type and designating the text as the payment amount;

sending an email confirmation to the sender email address, wherein the email confirmation includes a confirmation link to a network resource associated with the payment service system, wherein the confirmation link is encoded with one or both of the sender email address and the recipient address, and wherein the user can select the confirmation link to confirm a transfer of the determined payment amount; and

responsive to receiving an indication that the user selected the confirmation link included in the email confirmation,

initiating, by the payment service system, the transfer of the determined payment amount from the sender financial account to the recipient financial account based on the email message originating at the sender device, wherein the transfer of the determined payment amount is initiated using the sender recipient account associated with the user, the recipient financial account associated with the recipient, and the payment amount identified within the subject or the body of the email message, and wherein said initiating of the transfer includes communicating with computer systems of card issuers associated with the sender financial account and the recipient financial account to request the transfer.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the payment service email address is specified on a carbon copy field of the email message.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein said parsing the fields of the email message comprises parsing, by the payment service system, a From field of the received email message to identify the sender email address.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein said parsing the fields of the email message comprises parsing, by the payment service system, a To field of the received email message to identify the recipient email address.

10. The system of claim 6, wherein determining the payment amount further includes:

identifying a plurality of recipient email addresses of the email message and a corresponding plurality of recipient financial accounts from the stored data;

identifying the payment amount based on the parsing of text in the subject line or the body of the email message;

splitting the payment amount into a plurality of portions among each recipient email address of the plurality of recipient email addresses of the email message; and

initiating a transfer, for each recipient email address of the plurality of recipient email addresses, a particular portion of the plurality of portions to a respective recipient financial account of the plurality of recipient financial accounts.

11. A computer-implemented method of transferring money from an account of a user to an account of a recipient using an email message, comprising:

receiving, at a user device, user input of a payment amount to be transferred to a recipient account in a requested transaction, a recipient email address associated with a recipient, and a payment service email address configured to cause an email server to forward the email message to a payment service system;

generating, by the user device, an email message having the payment amount within a subject or a body of the email message; and

sending, by the user device, the email message to an email server, wherein receipt of the email message by the payment service system results in the payment service system

determining that the email message is indicative of a request for money, based on a presence of the payment service email address in the email message, parsing fields of the email message to identify a sender email address and the recipient email address,

identifying a sender financial account of the payment service system associated with the sender email address and a recipient financial account of the payment service system associated with the recipient email address,

determining the payment amount by identifying text in the subject or the body of the email message that includes a currency type and designating the text as the payment amount based on the identified currency type,

sending an email confirmation to the sender email address, wherein the email confirmation includes a confirmation link to a network resource associated with the payment service system, wherein the confirmation link is encoded with one or both of the sender email address and the recipient email address, and wherein the user can select the confirmation link to confirm a transfer of the determined payment amount, and

responsive to receiving an indication that the confirmation link included in the email confirmation was selected by the user,

initiating the transfer of the payment amount from the sender financial account to the recipient financial account, wherein said initiating of the transfer includes communicating with computer systems of card issuers associated with the sender financial account and the recipient financial account to request the transfer.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the payment service system creates a recipient account of the payment service system using the recipient email address.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the user input of the recipient email address is received in a To field of the email message.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the payment service email address is added on a carbon copy field of the email message.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the email message is addressed to the recipient email address before being sent by the user device.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the email message is generated by an application installed on the user device.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving user input in the body of the email message before being sent by the user device.