Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Reexamination Certificate
1998-03-31
2003-03-18
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
C340S540000, C340S679000, C340S870010, C340S870160
Reexamination Certificate
active
06535855
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to banking services and more particularly to a system and method which provides virtually immediate, on-going interaction between a banking institution and its customers.
Decades ago, financial institutions had the capability of offering service that could be tailored almost down to the single customer. For example: The Bank of Smalltown receives through deposit or clearing, a check on the account of valued customer Jones. The check will cause the customer's account to go into overdraft. The Bank reaches Jones by phone and advises him of the situation. Jones promises to come to the Bank that day with a cash deposit sufficient to cover the overdraft. At three o'clock, closing time for the Bank, Jones has not arrived. The branch manager, Smith, knows that Jones will honor his promise and assumes he must have been delayed. He also knows that Jones will suffer if the check is returned (i.e. returned to the bank of first deposit or to the local depositor—colloquially, the check will bounce). Smith keeps Jones' account open. Jones arrives at 3:30 p.m. and apologizes through the locked door to Smith. Smith takes Jones' money through the slot in the Bank's door and records the deposit. Service on a personal level such as described above, is largely a thing of the past.
Today, customers have three possible ways to receive information from their financial service institution. First, a customer can receive paper and/or microform records shipped to them on a prearranged schedule. Second, the customer can subscribe to an online service that allows the customer to pull down information from online databases that are updated on a fixed schedule. In the case of a corporate customer, the service is called, for example, an “online cash management system”, while in the case of an individual customer, the online system is usually called a “home banking system”. Typically, both of the above systems operate on intraday or intramonth batching schedules. These systems interleave exceptional information with everyday reporting, are cumbersome when there is a large amount of data, are labor intensive, and are prone to delays and missed opportunities unless managed with close precision by the customer. In essence, the customer gets the information the bank makes available on the bank's schedule.
In a third method of communication, the bank makes known to its clients information relevant to their accounts on an account by account basis via telephone. The contact by phone is labor intensive, and is therefore selectively used. It is also not reliable since the recipient may not be near the phone and a message recording device may not be activated.
Reasons for the unavailability, expense or ineffectiveness of such personal services include the volume of transactions passing through the financial networks, the number of businesses and persons having one or more accounts, the inability to precisely pinpoint the exact time when a service or special attention will be needed by a customer and finally, the inability to reliably communicate bi-directionally between the customers and the financial service institution at the point when knowledge of the information is critical.
This last point is especially true in the case of retail customers, individuals, regarding the reliable delivery of confirmations of receipt of instructions and confirmation of executed transactions.
The present invention addresses the aforementioned drawbacks of the prior art in the form of a new system and service which establishes a new paradigm in the delivery of financial banking services. This new paradigm is referred to herein as “Push Banking”. The terminology “Push Banking” is inspired, in part, by the evolution of the concept of “Push Technology” on the Internet.
Push Technology, as implemented to date, is an attempt to address the growing problem of the enormous amount of available information on the Internet. Existing search engine technology is inadequate to get reliable access to certain pieces of information. Such searches return thousands or tens of thousands of “hits” which must be searched with ever increasing ingenuity on the part of the operator. Even so, the final results of the automated search must usually be reviewed by the searcher to find the required information, if it can be found at all. “Push” in this context means that the information is sent to the operator by the system. “Pull” refers to the original search engine model where the operator requests the information from the system.
It appears that in all cases of Push Technology there exists an implicit profile of the information the operator desires to receive (usually established by the operator before the initiation of push services). In most cases there is an active application on the operator's workstation which “polls” a server on a periodic basis and downloads the information to the operator's terminal and displays it. In this case, it appears to the operator that the information is being “pushed” to him. More correctly, however, the operator has installed an application that does periodic customized searches (i.e. “pulls”) and then displays the results of the search. In at least one case, a Push Technology (from a company Backweb™ is used to do automatic software upgrades.
The terms “Webcasting” and “Netcasting” are also sometimes used interchangeably with “Push.” Indeed the radio or television broadcast is an archetype of the “Push” concept. In “Web/Netcasting” there is usually some sense of a filtered or customized broadcast (e.g. as described by a company POINTCAST™ under the term PERSONALCAST™ ). This implies a large common pool of broadcast information which is limited or filtered in some way to suit an individual operator. However, none of the prior art implements or teaches a pure Push Banking process as contained in the present invention which is driven by data of essential concern to a customer and facilitates immediate response from the customer via two way acknowledgment interaction.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, the present invention is a software/hardware system which provides increased diversity in the delivery of banking services. The system provides virtually immediate, on-going interaction between a banking institution and its customers and delivers to banking customers the information the customers need, at the moment it is available, at the customer's convenience.
The present invention is software driven system which is capable of reaching customers/subscribers over numerous, different communication channels and actively screens market conditions for situations that could potentially impact its customers, based on the customers' unique financial situation and prearranged instructions.
The present invention overcomes the limitations of the prior art by providing a comprehensive, fast, reliable, less expensive notification process for banks or other institutions with which to communicate relevant information to clients via messages that represent the considered whole of all the information at the time of transmission. The information can include a information about a customer's accounts and personal information of high importance to clients in a reliable and timely manner.
The drawbacks of the prior art have been ameliorated and the above and other objects of the invention have been realized in the form described below, by the instant inventors who have worked under the auspices of the assignee of the present invention, The Chase Manhattan Bank (“Chase”).
As a financial services entity, any bank has access to certain customers' financial information sooner than the customers. Additionally, if customers had earlier access to some of their account information based on prearranged screening (e.g. performed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) or other process) of the customers' situations vis-à-vis some emerging situational information, the customers could take immediate action in order to correct adverse financial i
Cahill Thomas
Chabra Steven
Clowney Vincent
Cowan John
Fitzgerald Thomas
Cosimano Edward R.
Ostrolenk Faber Gerb & Soffen, LLP
The Chase Manhattan Bank
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