Patent ID: 6438527
Filing Date: 2002-08-20
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
An electronic bill pay system wherein a consumer electronically directs a consumer financial institution to pay a biller's bill, and where the consumer financial institution pays the biller's bill electronically, the system comprising:a bill received by said consumer from said biller, said bill having machine-readable data fields comprising a biller identifier field, a consumer-biller account number identifier field, data capture means for capturing said machine-readable data fields from said bill, said data capture means controlled by said consumer; and a consumer terminal receiving captured data fields from said data capture means, said consumer terminal including at least means for generating a bill pay order and electronically transmitting said bill pay order to a bill pay network, said bill pay network operating to cause an electronic transfer of funds from an account of said consumer at said consumer financial institution to an account of said biller identified by said biller identification field in said bill pay order; means for validating said captured data fields, wherein data from said captured data fields is validated using billing information tables which contain valid biller identification numbers and consumer-biller account numbers obtained from said bill payment network, wherein said validating means detects and corrects reading errors in said captured data fields using error correction and detection data, said validating means also detecting whether said captured data fields contain an expected number of bits, said consumer terminal configured to prompt said consumer to recapture said machine-readable data fields if invalid data is detected; means for receiving data entered by said consumer, wherein said entered data comprises an identification of a source of funds which is included in said bill pay order; and means for receiving said billing information tables from said bill payment network.