System and method for obtaining customer bill information and facilitating bill payment at biller websites

• US 7,958,049 B2
• Filed: 04/02/2003
• Issued: 06/07/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fidelity Information Services, LLC (Fidelity National Information Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Metavante Corporation (Fidelity National Information Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Fortney, David S., Jamison, Eric W., Vasavada, Dhaval A., Kosowski, Alexander
• Primary Examiner(s): Colbert; Ella
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran; Hai
• Application Number:
  US10/405,570
• Publication Number:
  US 20030191711A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,988 Days
• Field of Search: 705/40, 700/90
• US Class Current: 705/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/04 Payment circuits
• 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 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/14 specially adapted for billing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

An integrated electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) system is disclosed which obtains bills for customers (which include individuals, businesses, and organizations) and allow payments including payments by credit card to be processed at the biller websites on behalf of customers. The integrated EBPP system obtains bills for customers from paper billers, electronic billers, and scrape-enabled biller websites, with customers providing access information for biller websites to the integrated EBPP system, which uses a software agent or bot to make scheduled scrapes of biller websites to obtain customer bills. The integrated EBPP system enables customers to automatically set up a user account at biller websites, with customers providing user access information and user financial account information, such as a credit card or debit card, for accessing biller websites and for initiating payments at biller websites.

Claims

1. An electronic bill payment system comprising:

a user interface at a first website on a user computer for enabling a user to enter user financial account information and user access information for use in accessing a biller website and for making a payment at said biller website from a user financial account, said first website being a different website than said biller website; and

a bot program for using said user access information to access said biller website,

said bot program using said user financial account information to initiate a payment on behalf of the user at said biller website from said user financial account,

the bot program configured with a bill presentment component for gathering user bills from billers, said electronic bill payment system being operative to pay electronic bills gathered by said bill presentment component,

the bill presentment component including an agent program acting as a proxy for the user for accessing the biller website using said user access information, said agent program, on a scheduled basis, scraping said biller website to obtain bill data for said user, said agent program returning said user bill data from said biller website to said bill presentment component for presentment to said user.

2. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a scheduling component enabling the user to schedule a payment initiation date, said scheduling component further allowing the user to define payment rules.

3. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 2, wherein said payment rules comprise a manual payment rule, an automatic payment rule, and a recurring payment rule.

4. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a payment validation feature to review information associated with said payment prior to making said payment to ensure that said payment will be successfully processed.

5. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a login verification feature to validate said user access information for accessing said biller website and verifying said user access information used to access said biller website and determining any potential problem in advance of making a payment.

6. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

an automated user ID and password feature for facilitating online setup of a user account at said biller website for the user if the user does not have a user account with said biller website.

7. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 6,

wherein said automated user ID and password feature captures user information from the user which is necessary to set up online access with said biller website.

8. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 6, wherein said automated user ID and password feature attempts to use a preferred ID and a preferred password provided by the user to set up online access with said biller website.

9. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 8, wherein said automated user ID and password feature automatically creates a new user ID and a new user password that meets the biller website requirements if said preferred user ID and/or said preferred password are not valid at said biller website.

10. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a credit card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a credit card.

11. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a debit card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a debit card.

12. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a stored valued card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a stored value card.

13. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a smart card bill payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with a smart card.

14. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a check payment component for enabling the payment of a bill with an electronic check.

15. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a backup account payment feature which enables the user to select at least one user financial account which will be used to settle a bill if the bill is not settled with a payment from said user financial account.

16. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

a bill balancing feature for computing the current balance of said user financial account by subtracting from an account balance the amounts of bills paid since the last time the account balance was updated.

17. An electronic bill presentment and payment system as defined in claim 1, wherein said bot program runs at off-peak hours to ensure faster processing.

18. An electronic bill presentment and payment system comprising:

a bill center for enabling a user bill to be presented and paid make a payment over the Internet, said bill center enabling a user at a first website on a user computer to enter user access information and user financial account information;

an first agent program acting as a proxy for said user for accessing a biller website using said user access information, said first agent program, on a scheduled basis, scraping said biller website for user bill data,

said first agent program returning said user bill data from said biller website to said bill center for use in producing a display at the bill center that looks like a bill the user would see at said biller website;

an automated account setup option for facilitating online set up of a user account at a biller websites for said user if said user does not have a user account with said biller website;

a first account bill payment component for paying bills from a first user financial account, said user financial account information including information relating to said first user financial account;

a second account bill payment component for paying bills from a second user financial account if payment of bills from said first user financial account is not possible, said user financial account information including information relating to said second user financial account; and

a second agent program for using said user access information to access said biller website,

said second agent program using said user financial account information to initiate a payment from at least one of said first and second user financial accounts at said biller website,

wherein the first website being a different website than said biller website.

19. An electronic bill payment system, comprising:

a user interface at a first website on a user computer for enabling a user to enter user access information allowing a user to access a biller website, said user interface also allowing said user to select at least one of a plurality of payment options for initiating payment at said biller website, said first website being a different website than said biller website; and

an agent program for using said user access information to access said biller website,

the agent program, on a scheduled basis, scraping said biller website to obtain bill data for said user, said agent program using said selected payment option to make a payment on behalf of said user at said biller website.

20. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 19, wherein said plurality of payment options includes at least two from the group consisting of a checking account, a credit card account, and a debit card account.

21. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 19, further comprising:

an automated account setup agent program for facilitating online set up of a user account at the biller website for said user if said user does not have a user account with said biller website.

22. An electronic bill payment system as defined in claim 19, wherein said user interface further allows said user to select at least one of a plurality of backup payment options for initiating payment at said biller website, said electronic bill payment system further comprising:

a backup agent program for using said user access information to access said biller website, said agent program using said backup payment option to initiate a payment on behalf of said user at said biller website if said selected payment option fails to settle a bill.

23. A method of paying bills via the Internet, comprising:

setting up a user at a first website on a user computer to settle bills at a biller website by acquiring user access information required to access said biller website and user financial account information to perform a payment at said biller website from said user financial account, the first website being a different website than the biller website;

accessing said biller website using said user access information, on a scheduled basis, to scrape user bill data from said biller website; and

making a payment from the first website on behalf of the user at said biller website using said user access information and said user financial account information.

24. A method as defined in claim 23, wherein said user financial account is a credit card account or a debit card account.

25. A method as defined in claim 23, further comprising:

automatically setting up a user account for initiating payment at said biller website based on said user financial account information.

26. A method as defined in claim 23, further comprising:

enabling said user to select a primary payment account and at least one backup payment account,

wherein said backup payment account is used to settle a bill if a primary payment account fails to settle a bill.

27. A method of paying bills via the Internet, comprising:

providing an interface at a first website on a user computer for a user to enter user access information required to access a biller website, wherein said user access information is validated at said biller website, the first website being a different website than the biller website;

automatically setting up a user account at said biller website if the user has not set up a user account at the biller website;

acting as a proxy for the user for accessing the biller website using said user access information and, on a scheduled basis, to scrape user bill data from the biller website for use in producing a display at the first website that looks like a bill the user would see at said biller website;

providing an interface for the user at the first website to enter bill payment information necessary to pay a bill at the biller site; and

making a bill payment on behalf of the user at the biller website using the user access information and the bill payment information.