Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Finance
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-10
2002-12-10
Hafiz, Tariq R. (Department: 2163)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Finance
C705S034000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06493685
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for publishing electronic information to consumers and for processing consumer's responses and more particularly to a system and method for presenting electronic bills to consumers and for processing consumer payments.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) is an electronic alternative to the traditional paper bill presentation and payment methods which have dominated commerce since the establishment of postal services. Separate from the accounting costs, some of which will be incurred regardless of the method of bill presentment and payment, the cost of presenting and paying bills using traditional paper methods is astronomical. Large billers (credit card, mortgage, car loans, student loans . . . ) are interested in EBPP for its cost displacement, revenue generation, and image enhancement potential.
Using EBPP, an entity which generates invoices (bills) for its goods and services is able to present bills electronically to its customers and enables the consumer to pay the bills electronically. In one simple model of EBPP, the invoicing entity, hereinafter a “biller”, generates the electronic bill itself and presents the electronic bill directly to its customer. The direct bill presentment is typically accomplished through an Internet web site maintained by or for the biller. This form of direct electronic bill presentment has certain advantages such as increasing consumer traffic to the biller's web site, which can generate additional revenues. Direct biller presentment also leverages the biller's investment in the web site. Finally, by using direct biller presentment, the biller can totally control each segment of the bill presentment and payment process. The entity which actually presents the interface to the customer is denoted as a Consumer Service Provider (CSP). As stated above, the functions of the CSP can be accomplished in-house by the biller itself, or outsourced to a firm which specializes in this type of function.
The greatest disadvantage of direct biller presentment is that the biller's customers must initiate the process of logging onto the biller's site on the Internet in order to view, review and pay its bills. This is known in the art as an example a “pull” type technology in which the consumer must take an active step of logging onto the biller's site. In contrast to the above described “pull” technology, “push” technology is exemplified by the traditional paper billing process in which the paper bill is “pushed” to the customer's mailbox at his/her mailing address. Another significant drawback of the direct biller presentment model is that, from a consumer's point of view, only bills from a single biller can be presented and paid at a the biller's web site. For example, if a customer's telephone service provider maintains a direct bill presentment web site, the customer can only pay its telephone bill at that site, and not its cable bill. To pay the cable bill, the consumer must log off of the telephone company's site and log onto the cable company's site. Still another disadvantage of direct bill presentment by the biller is that the biller must create a method by which the customer may pay the bill electronically while being logged onto the biller's site. Although several methods of processing electronic payments have been developed over the last few years, it is up to the biller to adopt, maintain and/or outsource one or more of these methods. There are actually two functions associated with payment processing. First, the function of actually interfacing with the consumer is accomplished by an entity which is denoted as a Consumer Payment Provider (CPP). The second function is processing the biller's credits which is performed by a Biller Payment Provider (BPP). Although these are two separate and distinct functions associated with payment processing, they are often performed by the same entity.
A second model for EBPP is through a consolidated bill presentment site. Through this method, access to electronic bills from several billers is provided on a single bill presentment site. Typically a bank provides a bill presentment site, after it has agreement from several billers (or the agents of billers) to act as the electronic bill presenter on behalf of the billers. An advantage to the biller in using a consolidated site is that it avoids the costs of developing and maintaining the site itself. Although the entity maintaining the consolidated site (the “consolidator”) will charge the biller for the service (typically on a transactional basis) the costs to the biller are significantly less than a self maintained site. Furthermore, the consolidator will typically provide some sort of payment processing service as described above. This is one reason which banks are drawn to this role, since banks typically have the systems and processes for payment processing. The consolidated approach is attractive to consumers in that a consumer can log onto a single site (typically with a single password) and have access to several electronic bills from several different billers. Another advantage of a consolidated site is that it does not exclude the biller from separately maintaining its own direct presentation site as described above. Even if the biller has its own Internet site which it uses for EBPP, the additional use of the consolidated site will only increase the likelihood that a biller's customer will use EBPP and thereby save the biller money by avoiding the traditional, and costly, paper billing system.
As with the direct bill presentment model described above, the greatest disadvantage of consolidated presentment is that it is a pull technology in which the consumers must initiate the process of logging onto the consolidated bill presentment site. Although it represents an advance over the direct presentation model, another disadvantage of the consolidated model is that a consumer can only electronically view and pay a subset of its bills at the consolidated site. The subset is usually defined by the number of billers which a consolidator is able to attract to its site. The advantage of the Internet being accessible national-wide (international) is, in part, a disadvantage from the perspective of EBPP which must take into account regional or local bills. For example, two of the monthly bills typically paid by most consumers are telephone and utility bills. By their very nature, the billers for these services are organized on a regional or local basis. For this reason, consolidators have an easier time attracting national billers (e.g., Sears) than they have signing up a local utility company. Another disadvantage for a biller using a consolidator is that the biller loses a significant marketing opportunity with respect to its customers. Typically, a consolidator will only provide the biller with a limited capability to present marketing materials to its customers. Furthermore, there exists the potential that a competitor of biller will also appear on the consolidated site and potentially drain customers away from the biller. A final and significant disadvantage of consolidated bill presentment is that the biller must, in some form, provide its billing data to the consolidator. Separate from the technical details of formatting its billing data in a form which the consolidator can use, the biller loses control of the process by the employment of a consolidator. Although contractual and legal obligations can be created with respect to the consolidator, the biller must always be concerned that its customer's billing data provided to the third party consolidator is not mishandled or misused.
One additional model for EBPP is through the use of Email. In this model, the biller, or the biller's agent generates the electronic bill which is forwarded directly to the consumer's designated electronic mailbox (Email address). The greatest advantage of this model
Ensel Laura A.
Fuertes Louis A.
Rykowsky William E.
Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP.
Hafiz Tariq R.
Jeanty Romain
The Chase Manhattan Bank
LandOfFree
Electronic account presentation and response system and method does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Electronic account presentation and response system and method, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Electronic account presentation and response system and method will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2995169