Instant availability of electronically transferred funds

• US 8,738,526 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2011
• Issued: 05/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: PayPal, Inc. (PayPal Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Nosek, Luke Paul, Richman, Christopher, Botha, Roelof Frederik, Lee, Maria, Hansen, Kyle, Pearson, Todd, Aptekar, Denise
• Primary Examiner(s): Akintola, Olabode
• Application Number:
  US13/267,717
• Publication Number:
  US 20120041876A1
• Time in Patent Office: 964 Days
• Field of Search: 705 35- 42
• US Class Current: 705/42
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/023 the neutral party being a clearing house
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• 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 system and method for making proceeds of an ACH (Automated Clearinghouse) transaction available to a user before the transaction is completed. The system may be part of an on-line system or traditional merchant configured to facilitate payments or fund transfers from users. A user requests the transfer of funds to an entity (e.g., another user, a merchant, the user'"'"'s account with the system) via an ACH entry. The system calculates a risk associated with the user, while considering various data (e.g., number of previous ACH entries, how many failed, how many succeeded, amount of the transfer). If the risk is low enough, the ACH entry is initiated and the desired funds are released for the transfer even before the ACH entry clears. The ACH entry may be presented as a default choice for funding the transfer.

Claims

1. An automated method of determining whether to release funds from a funding entry before the funding entry clears, the method comprising:

receiving, from a device associated with a user, a transaction request associated with the funding entry;

calculating, using a processor of a machine, a risk using details from a user profile of the user by computing a risk score indicating a perceived risk involved with releasing funds before the funding entry clears, the details including a total value of outstanding funding entries requested by the user; and

based on the risk score exceeding a transfer threshold and the total value of the outstanding funding entries being less than a maximum allowable value, making funds of the funding entry available before the funding entry clears.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the funding entry is an ACH (Automated Clearinghouse) entry, whereby funds of the ACH entry are made available before the ACH entry clears based on the risk score exceeding the transfer threshold.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the funding entry is associated with an account of an external financial institution.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, based on an amount of the funding entry being greater than a predetermined value, initiating an authorization against a credit source of the user to cover the funds.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, based on the amount of the funding entry being greater than a predetermined value, initiating a hold against a credit source of the user to cover the funds.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising, based on the risk being greater than the transfer threshold, allowing funding of the transaction request with a credit source.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the credit source is at least one selection from the group consisting of an electronic check, a credit card, a debit card, and an ACH entry.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising requesting the user to alter a detail of the transaction request based on the risk being greater than a threshold.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising placing a hold against a credit source of the user for the funds made available before the funding entry clears.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the details comprise a count of outstanding funding entries requested by the user, and wherein the making of the funds available further comprises making the funds available based on the count of outstanding funding entries being less than a maximum allowable number of outstanding funding entries.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the details comprise a reject ratio to indicate a ratio between a number of unsuccessful funding entries within a number of previous funding entries requested by the user and the number of previous funding entries.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the details comprise at least one selection from a group consisting of:

an amount of time the user has been a user of an online value transfer system at which the transaction request is received;

an amount ratio configured to indicate a ratio between a fund amount of the funding entry and an average amount of a number of previous funding entries;

a number of completed funding entries within a number of previous funding entries requested by the user, wherein a funding entry is completed if it clears or fails;

a number of previous funding entries requested by the user;

a debit card indication to indicate whether a primary funding source of the user is a debit card;

a credit card indication to indicate whether the user has previously completed a credit card transaction; and

a trust indicator to indicate a level of trust in a stated identity of the user.

13. A system for determining whether to release funds from a funding entry before the funding entry clears, the system comprising:

a request module configured to receive, from a device associated with a user, a transaction request associated with the funding entry;

a risk calculator configured to calculate, using the processor, a risk using details from a user profile of the user by computing a risk score indicating a perceived risk involved with releasing funds before the funding entry clears, the details including a count of outstanding funding entries requested by the user; and

a transfer module configured to make funds of the funding entry available before the funding entry clears based on the risk score exceeding a transfer threshold and the count of outstanding funding entries being less than a maximum allowable number of outstanding funding entries.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising a credit module configured to hold or authorize funds against a credit source based on the risk score.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the funding entry is an ACH (Automated Clearinghouse) entry, the system further comprising an ACH module configured to initiate an ACH transaction to retrieve funds from an external financial account.

16. A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of a machine, cause the machine to perform operations to determine whether to release funds from a funding entry before the funding entry clears, the operations comprising:

receiving, from a device associated with a user, a transaction request associated with the funding entry;

calculating, using a processor, a risk using details from a user profile of the user by computing a risk score indicating a perceived risk involved with releasing funds before the funding entry clears, the details including a reject ratio to indicate a ratio between a number of unsuccessful funding entries within a number of previous funding entries requested by the user and the number of previous funding entries; and

based on the risk score exceeding a transfer threshold, making funds of the funding entry available before the funding entry clears.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the operations further comprise, based on the risk being greater than the transfer threshold, allowing funding of the transaction request with a credit source.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the operations further comprise, based on an amount of the funding entry being greater than a predetermined value, initiating an authorization or hold against a credit source of the user to cover the funds.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the operations further comprise placing a hold against a credit source of the user for the funds made available before the funding entry clears.

20. An automated method of determining whether to release funds from a funding entry before the funding entry clears, the method comprising:

receiving, from a device associated with a user, a transaction request associated with the funding entry;

calculating, using a processor of a machine, a risk using details from a user profile of the user by computing a risk score indicating a perceived risk involved with releasing funds before the funding entry clears, the details including a count of outstanding funding entries requested by the user; and

based on the risk score exceeding a transfer threshold and the count of outstanding funding entries being less than a maximum allowable number of outstanding funding entries, making funds of the funding entry available before the funding entry clears.

21. An automated method of determining whether to release funds from a funding entry before the funding entry clears, the method comprising:

receiving, from a device associated with a user, a transaction request associated with the funding entry;

calculating, using a processor of a machine, a risk using details from a user profile of the user by computing a risk score indicating a perceived risk involved with releasing funds before the funding entry clears, the details including a reject ratio to indicate a ratio between a number of unsuccessful funding entries within a number of previous funding entries requested by the user and the number of previous funding entries; and

based on the risk score exceeding a transfer threshold, making funds of the funding entry available before the funding entry clears.