Token-Based Bill Payment Messaging for Real-Time Funds Availability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional payment methods do not allow billers to receive payment funds in real-time after a customer initiates the payment, and require customers to provide personal information, which poses security vulnerabilities.
Innovation Solution
A system enabling direct electronic bill payments using public identifiers like email addresses or phone numbers, bypassing the need for sensitive account information, and utilizing a payment-messaging system for real-time fund availability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If conventional payment methods are used, then customers can initiate payments through financial institutions or consolidated providers, but billers cannot receive payment funds in real-time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the payment processing function from traditional financial institution intermediaries and implements it directly within the messaging system. The messaging system now handles fund transfers natively, eliminating the time delay associated with external processing and enabling real-time funds availability for billers.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a new intermediary layer - the payment messaging system - that sits between customers and billers. This messaging system directly processes and transfers funds in real-time, replacing the traditional multi-step process through separate financial institutions and consolidated providers, thereby reducing time loss.
2Ease of operation
If customers provide personal information like account numbers for payment, then payments can be processed, but security vulnerabilities are created
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts sensitive personal information (account numbers, financial details) from the payment process. Instead of requiring customers to share this information with billers, the system uses anonymized identifiers and handles all personal data processing internally within secure boundaries, eliminating the security vulnerability while maintaining operational convenience.
Solution Approach 2:
The messaging system acts as a secure intermediary that receives and processes payment information without exposing it to billers. The system mediates between customer data and biller receipt, using tokenization and anonymization techniques to prevent direct exposure of personal information while enabling seamless payment processing.
Data Source
AI summary
A method including receiving, at a payment-messaging computing system from a biller financial institution, a request for information about a public consumer token of a consumer. The method also includes determining that the public consumer token of the consumer is registered and active in a directory of the payment-messaging computing system. The method additional includes determining a risk metric representing a risk of using the public consumer token for the bill payment. The method further includes sending the risk metric from the payment-messaging computing system to the biller financial institution to cause the biller financial institution to send the risk metric to the biller computer to allow the biller to determine whether to assume liability for the bill payment or instead request the consumer financial institution assume liability and whether to perform a step-up authentication, based on the risk metric. The method additionally includes receiving, at the payment-messaging computing system from the biller financial institution, an authorization message for the bill payment after the authorization message was provided to the biller financial institution by the biller computer. The method further includes sending the authorization message for the bill payment to the consumer financial institution, to cause the consumer financial institution to send a real-time payment message through the payment-messaging computing system to the biller financial institution to make funds available in real-time in the biller account for the bill payment. Other embodiments are described.