Bill Payment Card Enrollment via ACH Message Flagging
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current electronic bill payment systems lack the ability to efficiently facilitate payments using payment card accounts, requiring consumers to navigate multiple websites and remember various IDs and passwords, and do not offer immediate payment options or long-term payment history tracking.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that allow bill payment providers to offer consumers the option to pay bills using their payment card accounts, enabling electronic funds transfer through a mechanism that formats and dispatches messages with card details to an electronic bill payment system, providing a unified interface for card payments and enhancing existing electronic bill payment systems to support card transactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If consumers use existing electronic bill payment systems with demand deposit accounts, then payments can be made electronically, but consumers must navigate multiple websites and remember various IDs and passwords
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables payment card accounts to function within the electronic bill payment system originally designed for demand deposit accounts. By allowing payment cards to be processed through the existing ACH infrastructure with minimal modifications, the system achieves multi-functionality, accommodating both traditional bank account payments and new payment card transactions through a unified interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism that translates payment card transactions into ACH-compatible formats. This intermediary layer enables communication between the payment card industry infrastructure and the ACH network, allowing consumers to use payment cards for bill payments without requiring the biller or payment system to directly integrate with multiple card networks.
2Speed
If consumers use existing electronic bill payment systems, then payments can be made electronically, but immediate payment options are not available
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces dynamic processing capabilities to the traditionally batch-oriented ACH system. By enabling real-time authorization and processing options alongside traditional batch processing, the system can adapt to different payment speed requirements. Consumers can choose immediate payment processing when needed while maintaining the reliability of the established ACH infrastructure for standard transactions.
3Loss of information
If consumers use existing electronic bill payment systems, then payments can be made electronically, but long-term payment history tracking is not provided
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary enrollment actions where consumers proactively enroll their payment card accounts with the bill payment provider before making payments. This preliminary action establishes a persistent account relationship that enables automatic tracking of payment history over time, eliminating the need for consumers to manually track payments across multiple websites while maintaining systematic record-keeping.
4Adaptability or versatility
If payment card accounts are integrated into electronic bill payment systems, then card payment options become available, but processing fees may increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses copying by translating payment card transaction data into ACH network-compatible formats. Instead of creating entirely new processing infrastructure for payment cards, the system copies and adapts existing ACH processing mechanisms to handle card transactions, significantly reducing the cost of implementing payment card versatility compared to building separate dedicated card processing systems.
Data Source
AI summary
A bill payment provider offers to a customer an option to pay a bill from a biller using a payment card account. The offering is carried out via a mechanism of the bill payment provider. The mechanism is of a kind which normally facilitates payments via electronic funds transfer from a demand deposit account of the customer. A request to pay the bill using the payment card account is received via the mechanism. Payment of the bill using the payment card account is facilitated by formatting and dispatching a message from the bill payment provider to an electronic bill payment system. The message is flagged with a flag indicating that the message comprises a non-financial, card payment, message. The message includes an identification of the biller, a card number of the payment card account, and an expiration date of the payment card account. The message is an electronic funds transfer message augmented with the flag, the card number, and the expiration date. An alternative technique using an operator of a payment network is also disclosed, as are corresponding systems.