Abstract:
Techniques and systems are disclosed for calculating daylight overdraft fees charged to a user associated with a plurality of deposit account. The daylight overdraft fees may be customized (or adjusted) to the amount of time the user&#39;s aggregate accounts remain in overdraft. As such, those users that spend more time in overdraft during a business day may be charged higher fees than other users. Moreover, multiple deposit platforms may provide account data through feeds. As such a user with multiple accounts may be charged according to its aggregate overdraft amount rather than simply on each account individually. Additionally, enhanced reporting and billing features are disclosed.

Description:
[0001]    This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/950,274, filed Jul. 17, 2007, entitled, “Daylight Overdraft Tracking.” The aforementioned provisional application is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    The Federal Reserve System controls the use of intraday Federal Reserve Credit or daylight overdraft (DO). A DO occurs at any point in the business day when the balance in a banking institution&#39;s master account becomes negative. The Federal Reserve developed the Daylight Overdraft Reporting and Pricing System (DORPS) to monitor the institution&#39;s overdraft activity and to calculate DO charges. DORPS captures all debits and credits resulting from the banking institution&#39;s payment activity and calculates end-of-minute account balances using the daylight overdraft posting rules. DORPS generates reports at the end of each day and at the end of each two-week reserve maintenance period. Daily reports are used by Reserve Bank monitoring staff and by some banking institutions. The two-week reports show relevant monitoring information such as peak daily overdrafts for the period, overdrafts in excess of net debit cap, book-entry overdrafts, non-Fedwire account activity, end-of-minute account balances for a particular day, and related ratios, such as the peak daily overdraft relative to net debit cap. Reserve Banks may use the DORPS reports to assess daylight overdraft fees against a banking institution. 
         [0003]    DORPS provides real-time access to intra-day account balance and daylight overdraft balance information for master account holders and subaccount holders. It also provides available funds balance information for master account holders (e.g., users). DORPS give banking institutions the ability to point and click in order to drill-down from a summary total to an individual transaction, as well as search for a specific entry or group of entries. In addition, the application provides statement of account information to assist with account reconcilement functions. Master account holders can view activity for their own account, subaccounts, respondents, and affiliates, with appropriate authorization. Subaccount holders can view a sub-set of activity for their own account, respondents, and affiliates, if authorized. Subaccount holders can also view activity in the master account, if authorized. The Federal Reserve also provides other systems, such as the Account Management Information application and Cash Management Services to assist account holders. These and other features of DORPS are described in the “Account Management Information/Daylight Overdraft Reports Release 4.0 User Guide” made available by the Federal Reserve. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY 
       [0004]    Aspects of the present disclosure address one or more of the issues mentioned above by disclosing systems, devices, and methods. The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below. 
         [0005]    In accordance with various aspects of the disclosure, a method is disclosed for calculating daylight overdraft fees charged to a user associated with a plurality of deposit account. The method includes receiving data from a plurality of deposit platforms. The data received may comprise a deposit account amount, a corresponding time, and a unique identifier associated with the deposit account. The method may also include aggregating the deposit account amounts according to the unique identifier. Furthermore, the method allows for calculating a daylight overdraft charge for the deposit accounts associated with the unique identifier on a predetermined interval (e.g., one minute intervals). In some examples, a billing statement for the user designated for the unique identifier may be generated and/or displayed through a web interface. 
         [0006]    In one example, a system in accordance with aspects of the disclosure may comprise a computing device with at least a communication connection, a memory, and a processor. The processor may be used to perform one or more steps for tracking daylight overdrafts. In another example, a computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a processor to perform a method of tracking daylight overdraft is disclosed. The instructions may include steps for performing one of any methods disclosed herein or known to one of skill in the art in tracking daylight overdrafts. 
         [0007]    Various systems and persons involved in the banking process may benefit from one or more aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein. The features of the illustrative embodiments described herein contemplate additional other embodiments comprising one or more, or a combination thereof, of the aspects described throughout. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0008]    The present disclosure is illustrated by way of example and not limited in the accompanying figures in which like reference numerals indicate similar elements and in which: 
           [0009]      FIG. 1  shows an illustrative operating environment in which various aspects of the disclosure may be implemented; 
           [0010]      FIG. 2  shows an illustrative block diagram in accordance with various aspects of the invention; and 
           [0011]      FIG. 3  illustrates a method in which various aspects of the disclosure may be implemented. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0012]    Prior to DOTS, large commercial customers with Daylight Overdraft Limits (DOL) in place typically overdraw their accounts throughout the day and would fund their accounts towards the end of the business day. Some customers paid a negotiated flat fee for daylight overdraft privileges because of the inability to capture a particular customer&#39;s minute by minute DO balances. Thus there was an inability to easily customize intraday fees to those customers that have incurred a negative balance for more time and/or amounts than other customers. 
         [0013]    DOTS, unlike DORPS, monitors DO activity at a customer account level and not at an ABA routing number level. In addition, DOTS analyzes a large amount of deposits/withdrawals and other account activity to determine the DO amounts and times. Therefore, in one example, DOTS performs its calculations ex post. For example, DOTS may capture account activity (e.g., DDA transaction activity) for a full day and then use that information to retroactively calculate the DO amount and times. DOTS may, as shown in  FIG. 2 , pull account activity from numerous deposit platforms (e.g., IMPACS, IDS, WBS, etc.). Furthermore, DOTS may provide reports/invoices on a monthly (or any other periodic) basis. 
         [0014]    In addition, in one example, DOTS may be configured to provide a customer with the benefit of the doubt in DO fee calculations. For example, if there is any question concerning the timing of the data all credits may be posted before debits. The system may credit the customer when a possible point of confusion may arise. For example, if a customer believes it deposited money at a particular time, but DOTS captures the account transaction with a slightly later timestamp, the system may give the customer the benefit of the doubt. Therefore, in some instances, the aggregate DO fees received from customers may be less than the DO fees charged by the Federal Reserve. 
         [0015]    Furthermore, DOTS may associate accounts and activity by a GCI family structure, while DORPS may use an ABA structure using master accounts and subaccounts. GCI (Global Customer Identifier) may be a multi-digit code to track parties of the Global Corporate and Investment Bank (GCIB), Global Business and Financial Services (GB&amp;FS). GCI records may also contain various attributes about the client, as well as the line-of-business team members and their role responsibilities to their respective clients. GCIs may be assigned by a Core Entity Database (CED) that maintains profiles, etc. for the various customers/entities. 
         [0016]    Additionally, DOTS may provide for special handling of ACH activity by, for example, processing such activity at only predetermined time(s) during a day (e.g., 8:30 and 11:30). Moreover, DOTS may maintain the history of a customer and be able to provide that as an archive at a later time. 
         [0017]    An example of an illustrative personal computing system  100  in which various aspects and embodiments of the invention may be implemented is show in the simplified diagram in  FIG. 1 . The features of such a device are well-known to those of skill in the art and need not be described at length here. The illustrative system  100  is only one example of a suitable system and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention. Suitable computing environments for use with the invention include a computing device  102  or system that support interaction with an input devices  122  (e.g., digital camera  128 , document scanner  124 , multi-function office device  126 , etc.), output devices  118  (e.g., visual display  120 ), and communication connections  130  (e.g., Ethernet connection, IEEE 802.11, dial-up connection, etc.). The communication connections  130  may be used to allow the computing device  102  to communicate with other devices. With reference to  FIG. 1 , a computing device  102  commonly includes a memory  106  and a processor  104  (e.g., an Intel microprocessor). 
         [0018]    Programs, comprising sets of instructions and associated data, may be stored in the memory  106 , from which they can be retrieved and executed by the processing unit  103 . Among the programs and program modules stored in the memory  106  are those that comprise or are associated with an operating system  110  as well as application programs  112 . Application programs  112 , such as a web browser application, Java runtime environment, and others, and an operating system  110  are commonly installed in a computing device  102 . The memory  106  may also include a cache  106  to enhance device performance. Computing system  100  includes forms of computer-readable media. Computer-readable media include any available media that can be accessed by the computing device  102 . Computer-readable media may comprise storage media and communication media. Storage media include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer-readable instructions, object code, data structures, program modules, or other data. Communication media include any information delivery media and typically embody data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism. 
         [0019]    One skilled in the art will appreciate that numerous servers and/or computing devices may be used in the implementation of the various aspects of the disclosure. For example, a database may be used to maintain account and/or user information. In addition, data files may be stored on computer-readable medium and transported in various ways (e.g., via internet, wirelessly, wired, secure VPN, SSL, etc.) among the various devices. In addition, computer-executable instructions may be stored on computer-readable medium to perform one or more of the steps disclosed herein. A processor and/or memory, along with a user interface may be provided to interact with the various aspects of the system. 
         [0020]      FIG. 2  depicts a simplified, illustrative diagram of communications among various entities, persons, and/or systems in accordance with aspects of the disclosure. The illustrative diagram in  FIG. 2  is only one example of a suitable communication scenario and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the disclosure. 
         [0021]    DOTS  202  may be a computing system  100  that provides the capability of capturing an account&#39;s or family of account&#39;s one-minute balances. This allows DOTS  202  to calculate fee charges for those accounts with a negative balance based on actual number of minutes throughout the Fed Operating Day multiplied by an agreed upon a predetermined rate. In one example, the predetermined fee rate may be a different variable rate that varies according to the type of user holding the account. For example, a large business account may be provided a lower predetermined rate than an individual personal account. 
         [0022]    As illustrated in  FIG. 2 , DOTS  202  receives some feeds from various systems including wire transfer feeds from Global Cash Position (GCP)  204 , a proprietary system of Corporate Treasury. One skilled in the art will appreciate that there are various techniques that may be used to transmit a feed of data, including but not limited to, file transfer protocol (FTP), ODBC/DB2, and others. 
         [0023]    In one example, DOTS receives a feed from a wire/money transfer payment system (e.g., WTX/MFT Domestic Book Transfers  206 ). The feed may include a book transfer transactions file  208 . The payment system may be transferred on a daily basis, or any other predetermined interval. In addition, DOTS may receive a feed from a database  210  maintaining account relationships (e.g., GCI relationships). A Global Corporate/Customer/Client Identifier (GCI) may include a multi-digit code (e.g., nine-digit code) assigned by a Core Entity Database (CED) to track parties of the Global Corporate and Investment Bank (GCIB), Global Business and Financial Services (GB&amp;FS). GCI records on CED also contain various attributes about the client, as well as the line-of-business team members and their role responsibilities to their respective clients. The Core Entity Database (CED) may be the current database of record for all customer and prospect identification for the select service level, including Global Corporate &amp; Investment Banking (GCIB), Global Business and Financial Services (GBFS), Corporate Real Estate, and Private Bank. This database may contain party-to-party, customer-to-account, and party-to-associate references. 
         [0024]    For example, XYZ corporation may have three wholly-owned subsidiaries and have a GCI number associated with it. When requesting information using XYZ&#39;s GCI number, DOTS  202  may provide a comprehensive listing of each wholly-owned subsidiaries DO amounts and times. Meanwhile, DOTS  202  may also provide information about the wholly-owned subsidiaries (or any other type of affiliated corporation or entity or person) on an individual basis. 
         [0025]    Furthermore, DOTS  202  may receive a feed from the GCP (global cash positioning) system  204  to facilitate the calculation of the cost of intraday liquidity usage. In addition, FAST memo post  212  feeds may be used to submit information to DOTS  202  about manually entered deposit amounts and times. Moreover, various deposit platforms ( 216 ,  218 ,  220 ,  222 ,  224 ) are illustrated in  FIG. 2 . These platforms may submit feeds to DOTS  202  for processing and use in calculating DO amounts and times for numerous deposit accounts, which are uniquely identified by a GCI. The times provided by such platforms may be represented, in one example, as the duration of time that a corresponding deposit account was in overdraft. In another example, the times provide may be a start time and stop time marking the time a corresponding deposit account was in overdraft. 
         [0026]    In addition, a web interface  214  may be provided as an enhancement to allow customers to view their DOTS reports on-line. The web interface  214  may also permit the customer to interact with a financial institution to provide feedback and/or questions/comments regarding items in their DOTS report. For example, a customer may submit an inquiry as to a particular charge via the online interface. One skilled in the art will appreciate that various web technologies, such as a web browser, may be used to create such an interface. For example, the DOTS system  202  may comprise a processor  104  and memory  106  (e.g., a database server) to store and process information from feeds. 
         [0027]    Referring to  FIG. 3 , DOTS receives information (in step  302 ) from various sources as illustrated in  FIG. 2 . This information may include data comprising deposit account amounts, the time when the deposit account amount was captured, and the GCI (i.e., unique identifier) for the account. DOTS may capture (in step  304 ) a customer&#39;s aggregate balance at the start of a business day. For example, referring to the earlier example involving XYZ corporation, the corporation&#39;s aggregate balance would be the sum of each individual subsidiary&#39;s deposit account balance at the start of the day. Furthermore, DOTS may continue to capture data (in step  306 ) about the deposit accounts on a predetermined interval (e.g., one-minute intervals). DOTS may use the captured information throughout the day to summarize minute by minute balances (in step  308 ) for the customer (and any children companies associated with the customer). 
         [0028]    In accordance with various aspects of the disclosure, using a predetermined formula, DOTS may calculate (in step  310 ) the intraday DO fees due to the customer. This predetermined formula may be based on the Federal Reserve Bank&#39;s intraday overdraft computation. DOTS may use various systems, including CHIPS (clearinghouse for international payments systems) to calculate such fees. Furthermore, the calculation (in step  310 ) of the daylight overdraft charge may contain adjustments based on the user&#39;s use of financial services (e.g., business checking accounts, certificate of deposits, credit card services, etc.) offered by a financial institution. In another example, such adjustments may be based on the user maintaining a minimum balance in an account after the close of business each day (i.e., overnight). In addition, DOTS may group a customer and related accounts together or into different groups as desired. In one example, at regular intervals (e.g., monthly), a billing statement may be generated (in step  312 ) and sent to the customer for remittance (see step  314 ). The billing statement may comprises an individual summary of the minute-by-minute account balances of all deposit accounts associated with a particular unique identifier of a user. Alternatively, the billing statement may include just a summary of the aggregate account balance of all deposit accounts associated with the particular unique identifier. 
         [0029]    A DOTS in accordance with various aspects of the disclosure may provide one or more of the following features: (1) capture of minute by minute balances; (2) summarizing these one minute balances on a parent account level; and (3) calculation of daylight overdraft charges on a parent account level. Aspects of the disclosure provide a competitive advantage in terms of an ability to charge account holders a fees for the use of intraday credit. Intraday overdraft fees have increased significantly and DOTS permits a recouping of some of these charges by creating a system that captures an account holder&#39;s one minute balances and mimics (i.e., enhances upon the basic technique of) the Fed&#39;s intraday overdraft fee calculation. 
         [0030]    Although not required, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that various aspects described herein may be embodied as a method, a data processing system, or as a computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions. For example, a computer-readable medium storing instructions to cause a processor in a computing device to perform steps of a method in accordance with aspects of the disclosure is contemplated. In addition, various signals representing data or events as described herein may be transferred between a source and a destination in the form of electromagnetic waves traveling through signal-conducting media such as metal wires, optical fibers, and/or wireless transmission media (e.g., air and/or space). 
         [0031]    Aspects of the invention have been described in terms of illustrative embodiments thereof. Numerous other embodiments, modifications and variations within the scope and spirit of the appended claims will occur to persons of ordinary skill in the art from a review of this disclosure. For example, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the steps illustrated in the illustrative figures may be performed in other than the recited order, and that one or more steps illustrated may be optional in accordance with aspects of the disclosure. Furthermore, the features of the embodiments described above contemplate other embodiments comprising one or more, or a combination thereof, of the aspects described throughout.