System and Method for the Automated Brokerage of Financial Instruments

• US 20090037313A1
• Filed: 08/06/2008
• Published: 02/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Scottrade Incorporated (Charles Schwab Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Scottrade Incorporated (Charles Schwab Corporation)
• Inventors: Tully, Michael James, Lembree, Gregory Paul, Scott, Virgil Michael, Randle, Dwayne Oliver
• Granted Patent: US 8,069,138 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/35
• 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

Disclosed herein in a preferred embodiment is an automated financial instrument brokerage system wherein a front end layer interacts with customers to generate activity requests for an intermediate layer. The intermediate layer preferably processes the activity requests and places financial instrument orders on a financial market if appropriate. A backend layer preferably provides data to the intermediate layer for processing activity requests. Multiple heterogeneous front end customer applications may be supported by the same intermediate layer. Further, multiple backend layer applications may interact with the intermediate layer in a manner transparent to the front end layer. Further, scalability can be achieved be partitioning various tasks of the intermediate layer onto separate servers, and more preferably on separate redundant servers. Load balancers may then be used in the intermediate layer to provide distributed access to these servers. Also disclosed herein is a caching technique whereby turnaround time for processing activity requests can be reduced by reducing the number of times that the intermediate layer needs to interact with the backend layer.

Claims

1-64. -64. (canceled)

65. A method for switching an automated financial instrument brokerage system from an old customer account database to a new customer account database, the system comprising a first layer for interacting with users to generate activity requests related to one or more financial instruments, a second layer in communication with the first layer for processing activity requests, and a third layer comprising the old database and the new database, both the old and new database being configured to store customer account data relating to equities and options, the method comprising:

during a first time interval, (1) storing data relating to option trades transacted during the first time interval in the old database, (2) storing data relating to equity trades transacted during the first time interval in the new database, and (3) retrieving customer account data from both the old database and the new database in response to activity requests generated during the first time interval that need customer account data for processing;

during a second time interval, (1) storing data relating to option trades and equity trades transacted during the second time interval in the new database, and (2) retrieving customer account data from both the old database and the new database in response to activity requests generated during the second time interval that need customer account data for processing; and

upon expiration of the second time interval, (1) copying the content of the old database into the new database, (2) storing data relating to option trades and equity trades transacted after the expiration of the second time interval in the new database, and (3) retrieving customer account data from the new database in response to activity requests generated after the expiration of the second time interval that need customer account data for processing;

wherein the overall duration of the first time interval and the second time interval define a settlement period for equity trades.

66. The method of claim 65 wherein the settlement period for equity trades is three days.

67. The method of claim 66 wherein the first time interval is approximately two days in length, wherein the second time interval is approximately one day in length, and wherein the first time interval commences on the first day of combined use of the old database and the new database.

68. The method of claim 67 wherein the expiration of the second time interval occurs on a weekend.

69. The method of claim 67 wherein the first time interval commences on a Wednesday.

70. The method of claim 67 wherein a settlement period for option trades is one day.

71. The method of claim 66 wherein a settlement period for option trades is the duration of the second time interval.

72. The method of claim 71 wherein the first time interval is approximately two days in length, wherein the second time interval is approximately one day in length, and wherein the first time interval commences on the first day for combined use of the old database and the new database.

73. The method of claim 72 wherein the expiration of the second time interval occurs on a weekend.

74. The method of claim 72 wherein the first time interval commences on a Wednesday.

75. The method of claim 66 further comprising, after expiration of the second time interval, removing the old database from the system.

76-90. -90. (canceled)