Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Finance
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-21
2001-09-18
Downs, Robert W. (Department: 2165)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Finance
C705S039000, C705S042000, C705S034000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06292789
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to the field of computerized bill presentment and more particularly to the electronic delivery of a bill from any biller to any consumer and for electronic delivery of subsequent payment from the consumer to the biller.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Currently 10% of households are users of the internet for activities other than e-mail. Although estimates of the number of households currently using a computer for bill paying vary widely, it is estimated that by the year 2000, about 10% of the population will use a computer for bill paying. Regardless, all users still receive bills the “old fashioned” way through the U.S. mail, requiring physical retrieval, sorting, prioritizing, and placing beside the computer or the telephone for payment.
Paying bills is one of the major financial activities of consumers and businesses, and the task is unattractive, time consuming and recurring. Each bill paid by mail costs the consumer a minimum of postage plus checking charges, and each bill sent by mail costs the biller a minimum of postage plus printing charges. It is estimated that around 19 billion bills per year are sent and paid today, not including many non-bill statements. The use of technology for electronic bill presentment and payment can reduce the cost of the billing and payment process for up to 100 million U.S. households and their vendors and service providers.
There is a current need to provide a single, flexible approach to electronic bill presentment and payment that is acceptable to financial institutions and the financial services industry, that enables billers and consumers respectively to present and pay a majority of bills electronically, that meets the long term needs of financial institutions and their customers, and that enables financial institutions to provide a range of value-added services for their customers.
There is a further need for an electronic bill presentment and payment system which provides consumers with the ability to transact bill payments across delivery channels such as the internet, automated teller machines/customer activated terminals (ATM/CAT's), interactive television, and telephone; which enables consumers to determine how or if their financial data is to be used; and which supports the same range of payment instruments such as credit cards, checks or cash found in the physical world.
There is also a need for a computerized bill presentment and payment system which provides billers with control over how their bills are presented and how their financial data is used; which provides flexibility and extensibility to adapt to frequent technological advances; and which provides a high quality, trusted, low cost alternative to existing bill and consumer service providers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is a feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic bill presentment system which allows many parties to participate, so billers can reach all electronic customers, and consumers can receive bills from all billers in one system.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic bill presentment system which is easy to use, makes use of software that is easy to use, and which can serve many parties, so that billers and consumers are not faced with a system available for only a small portion of their bills.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic bill presentment system able to service consumers with basic computer set-ups and other devices such as ATM/CAT's and set-top boxes.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic bill presentment system capable of taking data from billers' legacy systems and reformatting and transmitting the directly.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic bill presentment system that is less expensive for billers to use than prior art billing methods.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic bill presentment system that is inexpensive for consumers to use.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide a user-friendly, well integrated electronic bill presentment/bill payment system for consumers who have payment accounts at any financial institution such as a bank or brokerage.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an accurate, bulk processing electronic bill presentment system for large billers with many billing accounts.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide secure electronic billing transports that are interoperable with other secure transports at low cost, streamlined, and with high reliability and uptime standards.
It is a further feature and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic bill presentment system which presents bills to consumers on a variety of communication devices, such as computers, interactive television sets, or on an audio basis by telephone, and enables billers to send graphics, variable data and enclosures of various types.
Electronic bill presentment according to the present invention is an enhancement to electronic bill payment that adds considerable value to the customer proposition and allows a tracking capability for bills received and paid. It also allows customers to store bills electronically and manipulate them, which has not been previously possible. Electronic bill payment is done between consumers and their banks or other service providers, but electronic bill presentment involves the biller and its service provider as well, so the electronic bill presentment system of the present invention involves more entities, namely consumers, businesses and networks. The systems and operational flows of the present invention are designed to meet the needs of both consumers and billers.
The electronic bill presentment and payment system of the present invention is designed to accommodate all the possible entities currently involved in the bill presentment and payment process, and to add value to all parties over the current system. The system of the present invention streamlines the entire process, reduces the delay, cost and manual processing involved, and also provides increased control and better access to information for all the parties. The system of the present invention also provides the ability to deal with special handling of bills, including priority handling, automatic filing into folders, and filters to screen unwanted messages. The system of the present invention further enables billers and consumers to consolidate bills and bill presentment. The system of the present invention additionally allows billers to personally customize and control the content and format of the bill presentment within the constraints of the presentation device selected by the consumer, including the ability to include graphics, to sort the information in any arbitrary order, to subtotal, and to insert enclosures.
The electronic bill presentment and payment system of the present invention enables one-stop retrieval and payment of bills by consumers and provides consumers with greater control over their financial data by providing a centralized financial information repository on a mailbox server. The system of the present invention also provides billers with efficiency by enabling access to consumers from a number of financial institutions, including banks; provides billers with control over bill presentation and links between payment and invoice; and provides billers with faster and lower cost bill presentment. Further, the bill presentment and payment system of the present invention provides bill and consumer service providers with a standard interface that simplifies integration with existing financial institution, bill and consumer service provider systems.
In the electronic bill presentment and payment system of the present invention, the parties have distinctive roles and r
Citibank N.A.
Downs Robert W.
Kilpatrick & Stockton LLP
Marcou George T.
Rosen Nicholas David
LandOfFree
Method and system for bill presentment and payment does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method and system for bill presentment and payment, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method and system for bill presentment and payment will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2544531