Patent ID: 7720760

Claim:
A method of transferring funds between a sender and a receiver to pay a bill from the receiver, the method comprising: receiving, at a host system having a processor, a designation of a payment amount, a designation of a source account, a contact item for the receiver provided by the sender, and a bill identifier associated with the bill; transferring, using the processor of the host system, the payment amount from the source account to an account of the host system by sending the designation of the source account and a designation of the account of the host system to an automated clearinghouse (ACH) member and instructing the ACH member to effect a first ACH entry to debit the payment amount from the source account to the account of the host system; contacting the receiver using the processor of the host system and the contact item provided by the sender; receiving, at the host system and in response to contacting the receiver using the contact item provided by the sender, a designation of a target account of the receiver; transferring, using the processor of the host system and in response to receiving the designation of the target account of the receiver, the payment amount from the account of the host system to the target account of the receiver by instructing the ACH member to effect a second ACH entry to debit the payment amount from the account of the host system to the target account of the receiver; and sending, using the processor of the host system, the bill identifier to the receiver, wherein the receiver credits the sender based on the bill identifier for the payment amount.