Patent ID: 6049785
Filing Date: 2000-04-11
Classification: G06Q,G07F

Abstract:
An open network payment system for transferring funds having real monetary value from a sender to a beneficiary, comprising:a plurality of client computers; anda payment computer;the client computers and the payment computer being interconnected by a public packet switched communications network;at least one of the client computers being programmed to construct a payment request specifying a payment amount to be transferred from a sender to a beneficiary, and to cause the payment request to be transmitted to the payment computer over the public packet switched communications network;the payment computer being programmed to transmit a confirmation request message, over the public packet switched communications network, to one of the client computers that corresponds to a network address of the sender of the payment amount, and the client computer that corresponds to the sender of the payment amount being programmed, in response thereto, to transmit a confirmation message to the payment computer by electronic mail, in order to guarantee that the sender approves of the payment request;the payment computer being programmed to cause funds having real monetary value to be transferred from the sender to the beneficiary conditioned on the payment request having been authorized based on an external credit card account or an external demand deposit account having sufficient funds or credit of real monetary value available to the sender.