Patent ID: 11928138
Assignee: VISA EUROPE LIMITED
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 4:
5. Apparatus comprising a processing system comprising:
a processor; and
a computer readable medium, the computer readable medium comprising instructions, executable by the processor, to cause the processing system to:
receive a first account association request message in relation to a first user account from a first user device of a first user in an account based system, the first account association request message comprising account identification data corresponding to a second user account in the account based system, the account identification data corresponding to the second user account being an e-mail address or a phone number of a second user;
identify, on the basis of the first account association request message, a first source account identifier which corresponds to the first user account and a first target account identifier which corresponds to the second user account, wherein the first target account identifier is identified using the e-mail address or the phone number of the second user;
receive a second account association request message in relation to the second user account from a second user device of the second user, the second account association request message comprising account identification data corresponding to the first user account, the account identification data corresponding to the first user account being an e-mail address or a phone number of the first user;
identify, on the basis of the second account association request message, a second source account identifier which corresponds to the second user account and a second target account identifier which corresponds to the first user account, wherein the second target account identifier is identified using the e-mail address or the phone number of the first user;
having received the first account association request message and the second account association request message:
determine a match between the first source account identifier and the second target account identifier, and
determining a match between the second source account identifier and the first target account identifier; and

on the basis of the determined matches between the first source account identifier and the second target account identifier, and between the second source account identifier and the first target account identifier, establish a relationship between the first user account and the second user account, wherein establishing the relationship comprises:
without revealing account information for the first user account to the second user, adding the account information for the first user account to the second user account by adding an entry for the first user account to a list of payees associated with the second user account; and
without revealing account information for the second user account to the first user, adding account information for the second user account to the first user account by adding an entry for the second user account to a list of payees associated with the first user account,

wherein the first user account is a first user bank account and the second user account is a second user bank account, and
wherein the account identification data corresponding to the first user account was obtained by the second user device from the first user device over a communication channel that uses a packet-based network or a cellular communication network before the second account association request message is received by the apparatus.