Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Finance
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-29
2001-05-01
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2761)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Finance
C709S217000, C709S218000, C709S230000, C709S238000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06226623
ABSTRACT:
NOTICE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IN DISCLOSURE
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to financial transaction systems, and in particular, to an integrator, i.e., a system and process that allows customers to access a full range of global financial services using a variety of access points. More particularly, this invention relates to the architecture of a global standard messaging service that permits rapid communication among worldwide users of the service as may be desired by industries relating to the transfer of finances and demographic data. Furthermore, the invention relates to the architecture of a communications network as may be required by the banking industry in obtaining customer demographic information, processing this information and relaying back changed customer demographics as is often required by financial service providers. In addition, the present invention: assists in the creation of homogeneous service from heterogeneous components; facilitates easy ‘plug 'n play’ of new products and services; presents interfaces to distribution points and service provider components that will be stable in the face of infrastructure changes; simplifies complicated financial transactions involving demographic data; provides very high levels of integrity and reliability for the end-to-end fulfillment of business requests; and enables applications to communicate the appropriate level of business language be it customer oriented, product oriented and the like.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, financial institutions have become increasingly diversified. Banks, for example, now offer a wide variety of products and services not previously available. These new products and services fall into two broad categories—new technologies for interacting with the financial institution and new financial services or “products” offered by the financial institution.
From the customer's point of view, there are certain access points (or, from the bank's perspective, “distribution points”) through which the customer may access the bank's services. Historically, the principal access point was a teller. But recently, there has been a proliferation of automated access points including the now ubiquitous automatic teller machines and customer activated terminals (ATMs and CATS) and, more recently, screen phones, personal computers configured for banking, personal digital assistants, voice response systems, smart cards, teller workstations and banking staff terminals. Technology in existence today allows bank customers to access their banks from any place at any time and offers tremendous efficiencies for the bank. However, to achieve these benefits, customers must be willing to use these automated alternatives to human tellers. One way of encouraging use of automated systems is to make the systems as user friendly as possible. To this end, automated systems should be able to process business language requests such as “How much money do I have in the bank?”
A business problem results from a business transaction request along the lines of “show me all the funds I have in the bank” or “move $100 from my checking account to my savings account” or some similar statement that shows up at the distribution or access point. From the bank's point of view, these business language requests must be processed by discrete “service providers” that handle check withdrawal authorization or mortgage loan processing or securities transactions, for example. These service providers are typically not capable of handling business language requests. The service providers tend to specialize. For example, a bank may have a mortgage processor, a securities processor and so on. Many banks outsource certain services, such as securities. As a result, none of these individual systems are aware of or care about the relationship, i.e., the fact that the customer has both the checking and the securities relationship with the bank. Another example is the transfer of money from checking to savings. If checking and savings are handled by discrete service providers, one service provider wants to know “debit $100” and another service provider wants to know “credit $100.” The service providers don't really care about the relationship or what the source or destination of funds is, the providers only care about one direction of the transaction. In short, there is a gap between the access or distribution points and the service providers. There is need for a system and process that bridges this gap, i.e., something in the middle that has awareness of how to balance the whole thing together.
In addition, different service providers and access points can't speak with different protocols or languages. One understands screen formats and another one understands messages according to other protocols homegrown or otherwise. There is a need for a way of normalizing or flattening them all out to common language so they can interact with each other.
Financial institutions have also begun to offer a broader range of traditional banking accounts as well as investment and financial services. This ordinarily requires even more service providers.
There have been previous efforts to integrate financial services. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,424,938 ('938), to Wagner et al., discloses an interface system for a plurality of payment networks providing each user with a display of data necessary and applicable to complete a desired transaction. The interface system is accessed from a remote computer terminal and is disclosed for use in monetary transactions. In addition to providing a display, the system also allows the remote access user to perform transactions within the accessed account. The Wagner et al. preferred embodiment is summarized in 10 of FIG. 1 of patent '938, wherein payment networks including the Federal Reserve Bank 16 and FEDWIRE network for facilitating transfer of funds and securities between depository institutions 16 and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transfers (SIFT) network 20 are accessed by a bank housing a central computer 12. In addition, the central computer also provides access to the networks to customers having computers 28 with communications capabilities.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,126,936 ('936), to Champion et al., discloses a computer interface to a plurality of banking users. The interface comprises an information management system for a disclosed use in investment banking. The system, as summarized in FIG. 2 of the '936 patent, provides banks, brokers, and remote modem users with access accounts for deposits, investments and the like. Although disclosed primarily for investment purposes, the system is intended to be ‘goal oriented’ according to particular markets to be invested in. Therefore the system provides some market demographic information (as may be related to the investment) to the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,455,407 (“407”), to Rosen, discloses an electronic banking system comprising electronic money and customer demographics to be exchanged electronically among banks and clearing houses. Customer accounts of any user bank can be accessed and manipulated according to information entered from a remote location. A summary of the preferred embodiment is provided in
FIG. 1
of the '407 patent. The monetary system can be accessed remotely and in person.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,373, to Keyser, Jr. et al. discloses a remote banking terminal controlled by a host bank. Account information and financial services, although controlled by the host bank, are made available to the authorized customer. In addition, banks and related financial institutions other than the host ba
Aron Paul
Ataie Faraz
Bamberger Frank
Demeter Dan A.
McGlynn John
Citibank N.A.
Cosimano Edward R.
Kilpatrick & Stockton LLP
Marcou George T.
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