Patent ID: 8401970

Claim:
A system, comprising: one or more memories comprising a plurality of payment authorization records, wherein each payment authorization record indicates: funds of a financial account have been reserved in advance of payment for a given transaction between a merchant and a customer, wherein the reserved funds are greater than or equal to the payment for a given transaction, and an availability status indicating whether at least a portion of the reserved funds are unassigned to a transaction; and one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories, wherein the one or more memories comprise program instructions executable by the one or more processors to, receive an event that causes an existing transaction between a merchant and a customer to require less funds at settlement than previously required by that transaction; in response to the event: identify a payment authorization record for the existing transaction from said plurality of payment authorization records; modify the identified payment authorization record such that the availability status of that record indicates at least some funds reserved in advance of payment previously assigned to the existing transaction are now unassigned; subsequent to a determination that the newly unassigned funds are eligible as a reserve in advance of payment in one or more other transactions, modify the availability status of the identified payment authorization record to reassign those funds to said one or more other transactions.