Tokenized Bill Payment Messaging for Real-Time Funds Availability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional payment methods for billers do not allow real-time fund availability after payment initiation and require customers to provide sensitive personal information, leading to security vulnerabilities.
Innovation Solution
A system enabling direct electronic bill payments using public identifiers like email or phone numbers, bypassing the need for account numbers, and utilizing a payment-messaging system for real-time fund transfer.
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 real-time fund availability to the biller is not achieved
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the payment initiation function from traditional financial institution systems and places it directly at the biller's portal. The biller system directly receives payment authorization from the customer and initiates fund transfer, eliminating the intermediary processing steps that cause delays in conventional methods.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a payment processing intermediary that facilitates direct real-time fund transfer between the customer's financial institution and the biller. This intermediary system enables immediate fund availability by creating a direct payment channel that bypasses traditional batch processing delays.
2Ease of operation
If customers provide personal information like account numbers for payment, then payment can be processed, but security vulnerabilities are created
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a payment token as an intermediary that replaces sensitive personal information in the payment flow. The token acts as a secure proxy that enables payment processing without exposing the customer's actual account numbers or personal financial data to the biller or intermediaries.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a copy or representation of the payment authorization through a token that can be used for transaction processing without requiring the original sensitive personal information to be transmitted or stored. This token copy enables payment while preserving security.
Data Source
AI summary
A method including receiving, at a payment-messaging system from a biller financial institution, a request comprising a public consumer token of a consumer. The consumer provided the public consumer token to a biller system of a biller for a bill payment by the consumer to the biller. The biller system provided the public consumer token to the biller financial institution. The biller financial institution maintains a biller account of the biller. The acts also can include determining a risk metric representing a risk of using the public consumer token for the bill payment. The acts additionally can include sending the risk metric from the payment-messaging system to the biller financial institution. The biller financial institution sends the risk metric to the biller system to allow the biller to determine whether to assume liability for the bill payment. The acts further can include receiving, at the payment-messaging system from the biller financial institution, an authorization message for the bill payment. The authorization message was provided to the biller financial institution by the biller system. The acts additionally can include sending the authorization message for the bill payment to a consumer financial institution, to cause the consumer financial institution to send a real-time payment message through the payment-messaging 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.