Financial portfolio management system and method

• US 7,640,200 B2
• Filed: 06/15/2001
• Issued: 12/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Morningstar Incorporated
• Original Assignee: ByAllAccounts, Incorporated (Morningstar Incorporated)
• Inventors: Dickau, Ellen L., Carney, James M., Gardner, L. Patrick, Dickau, Martin
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen; Nga B.
• Application Number:
  US09/881,959
• Publication Number:
  US 20020042764A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,119 Days
• Field of Search: 705 34- 40, 705/36.R, 709/200, 709/218
• US Class Current: 705/36.00R
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof
• 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

A financial portfolio management system operable in a network environment can be configured to gather financial information from a plurality of sources over an electronic network and intelligently aggregate the information into a financial portfolio viewable by a client. The client can determine which accounts should be included in the portfolio. The system uses web crawling, parsing, or spidering technology to update the portfolio information. The system provides one platform that conveys financial information from a variety of accounts held at several different financial institutions.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium storing software code representing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a financial portfolio management method, the method comprising:

retrieving over a network financial information associated with a client, retrieving including connecting over the network to each of a plurality of different financial institutions and downloading from each of the plurality of different financial institutions financial information associated with the client, at least one of the plurality of different financial institutions storing its financial information associated with the client in a data format that is different than at least one other of the plurality of different financial institutions stores its financial information associated with the client, the retrieving further including for at least one of the plurality of different financial institutions automatically performing a login procedure;

normalizing the retrieved financial information into a single normalized data format by assigning each piece of financial information associated with the client and retrieved from each of the plurality of different financial institutions to a different position in a stored data model for each of the plurality of different financial institutions;

generating a financial portfolio by aggregating financial information in the stored data models, the aggregating including applying at least one language-processing technique to extract one or more pieces of financial information from a description portion of the retrieved financial information; and

conveying information associated with the financial portfolio.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the generating step comprises establishing relationships among the data models.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the conveying step comprises providing a display of graphical and textual information related to the information associated with the financial portfolio.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the network is the Internet and the retrieving step includes the use of a secure communication protocol.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises receiving a communication from a client computer to initiate the step of conveying information associated with the financial portfolio.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the client computer is operatively connected to the network via a network browsing program, the network browsing program including an application which the client can engage to communicate a request to initiate the step of conveying information associated with the financial portfolio.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the step of conveying information associated with the financial portfolio comprises communicating the information to a browser operating on a client computer.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the step of conveying information associated with the financial portfolio comprises communicating the information to a communication device for presentation by voice, text, or graphics.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises receiving a communication from an application running on a client computer.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the communication from an application running on a client computer is a communication from an applet application running on a browser on the client computer.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the communication includes information regarding client identification.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the retrieving step occurs automatically at intervals determined by a system configuration or at a specific time when requested by the client.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the retrieving step includes at least one of web crawling, parsing, and spidering technology.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises calculating a value, including multiplying a price by a given number of shares of a stock or mutual fund to calculate the total value of an investment by a client in the stock or mutual fund.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the normalizing step comprises parsing the retrieved financial information.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises generating an alert and conveying an alert message to the client when a client-defined condition is satisfied.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises encrypting the retrieved financial information and portfolio information.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the conveying step comprises conveying the information associated with the financial portfolio to the client.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein at least one of the plurality of different financial institutions comprises a credit union, a banking institution, a stock exchange, or a portfolio managing company.

18. A method of enabling access to financial information over a network, the method comprising:

using a first processing system to maintain a financial information processing unit, the financial information processing unit configured to retrieve and manipulate financial information of a client located at a number of unrelated financial institutions;

receiving a signal for invoking the financial information processing unit from a remote processing system via the network, the signal having been transmitted from the remote processing system in response to a selection of a hypermedia link; and

using the first processing system to operate the financial information processing unit in response to the signal at least to retrieve the financial information by connecting over the network to each of the number of unrelated financial institutions, automatically performing a login procedure for at least one of the financial institutions, and downloading from each of the number of unrelated financial institutions the financial information, at least one of the number of unrelated financial institutions storing its financial information in a data format that is different than at least one other of the number of unrelated financial institutions stores its financial information, at least some of the retrieved financial information being normalized into a single normalized data format by assigning each piece of financial information associated with the client and retrieved from each of the number of unrelated financial institutions to a different position in a stored data model for each of the number of unrelated financial institutions, and also using the first processing system to operate the financial information processing unit for generating a financial portfolio by aggregating financial information in the stored data models, the aggregating including applying at least one language-processing technique to extract one or more pieces of financial information from a description portion of the retrieved financial information.

19. A computer-readable medium storing software code representing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method of enabling access to financial information over a network, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request from a first remote processing system via the network, the request having been generated by the first remote processing system according to a hypermedia link provided to the first remote processing system from a separate processing system on the network; and

in response to receiving the request, transmitting to the first remote processing system over the network information for enabling the first remote processing system to output a financial information interface to a user, the financial information interface including financial information of a client retrieved from a number of different financial institutions,

the retrieval including connecting over the network to each of the number of different financial institutions and downloading from each of the number of different financial institutions financial information of the client,

at least one of the number of different financial institutions storing its financial information in a data format that is different than at least one other of the number of different financial institutions stores its financial information,

the retrieval further including for at least one of the number of different financial institutions automatically performing a login procedure, at least some of the retrieved financial information having been normalized into a single normalized data format by assigning each piece of financial information of the client and retrieved from each of the number of different financial institutions to a different position in a stored data model for each of the number of different financial institutions,

the financial information interface also including a financial portfolio of the client generated by aggregating financial information in the stored data models, the aggregating

including applying at least one language-processing technique to extract one or more pieces of financial information from an unstructured description portion of the retrieved financial information,

the financial information interface being configured to enable the user to request specific financial information for a financial institution.

20. A processing system comprising:

a central processing unit (CPU); and

a storage device coupled to a processor and having stored there information for configuring the CPU to;

maintain a financial information processing unit corresponding to a single client and a plurality of different financial institutions maintaining accounts for the client, the financial information processing unit configured to provide a user interface for enabling the client to submit requests for information on financial information of the financial institutions configured to receive and process the requests, and configured to retrieve the requested financial information where the retrieval includes connecting over a network to each of the plurality of different financial institutions and downloading from each of the plurality of different financial institutions at least some of the financial information, at least one of the plurality of different financial institutions storing its financial information in a data format that is different than at least one other of the plurality of different financial institutions stores its financial information,

the retrieval further including for at least one of the plurality of different financial institutions automatically performing a login procedure,

the financial information processing unit also configured to normalize at least some of the retrieved financial information into a single normalized data format by assigning each piece of financial information associated with the client and retrieved from each of the plurality of different financial institutions to a different position in a stored data model for each of the plurality of different financial institutions, and the financial information processing unit also configured to generate a financial portfolio by aggregating financial information in the stored data models,

the aggregating including applying at least one language-processing technique to extract one or more pieces of financial information from a description portion of the retrieved financial information, the one or more pieces of financial information missing in at least one of the stored data models;

receive a request for invoking the financial information processing unit from a remote processing system via a network, the request having been transmitted from the remote processing system in response to a selection of a hypertext link by the user; and

operate the financial information processing unit in response to the request.