Patent ID: 7152048
Filing Date: 2006-12-19
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method for a financial services provider to securely process corporate payment requests over a computer network, comprising the steps of: issuing a primary digital certificate to a primary certificate holder of a corporation, the primary certificate being configured to authorize the primary certificate holder to designate a plurality of holders of secondary digital certificates that are derivative from the primary certificate, each of the primary and plurality of secondary certificates including unique identifying information and an indication of authority of the holder of the certificate that includes a predetermined maximum payment that the holder of the certificate is authorized to validate and an identification of payees for which the certificate holder is authorized to validate payments, an authority defined in each of the secondary digital certificates being comparatively more limited than an authority defined in the primary digital certificate; collecting, over the computer network, pending corporate payment requests for clearing against an account of the corporation; periodically generating a pending payment statement that includes the collected pending payment requests; requiring that each of the collected pending payment requests be validated by an authenticated secondary certificate holder having the authority to validate the payment requests up to the predetermined maximum payment and for the identified payees included in the indication of authority of the secondary certificate issued to the authenticated secondary certificate holder, and clearing only validated corporate payment requests of the pending payment statement against the corporate account.