Patent ID: 8301533

Claim:
A non-transitory, tangible computer program product for automatically fulfilling currency exchange requests received at a processor for a plurality of different currencies that are received from a plurality of different customers, each request being (i) a request to exchange an amount of funds of a source currency for funds of a target currency, or (ii) a request to receive an amount of funds of a target currency by exchanging source currency, the automatic fulfilling being performed via the processor, the computer program product comprising computer-readable media encoded with instructions for execution by the processor to perform a method comprising: (a) providing in a memory of the processor a currency exchange rate for the plurality of different currencies that may be exchanged; (b) updating the currency exchange rates in the memory at the end of each of a succession of predetermined time periods; (c) receiving at the processor currency exchange requests from a plurality of different customers to be filled at the exchange rates in the memory; and (d) fulfilling, using the processor, at least some of the requests by: (i) automatically matching requests of one or more customers with requests of one or more other customers who have requested an exchange of the converse target and source currencies in an amount of currency sufficient to match a first portion of the requests using the currency exchange rates in the memory of the processor, and (ii) using amounts of currency in different currency types that are not received from the customers to fulfill a second portion of the requests using the currency exchange rates in the memory of the processor, wherein step (d)(ii) is performed at the end of each of the predetermined time periods, and wherein the currency exchange requests are always guaranteed to be fulfilled, and are actually fulfilled, at the same currency exchange rate that exists in the memory of the processor when the currency exchange requests are received at the processor, and thereby during each predetermined time period, all customers who make the same currency pair request to (i) exchange an amount of funds of a source currency for funds of a target currency, or (ii) receive an amount of funds of a target currency by exchanging source currency, receive the same currency exchange rate.