Patent ID: 8041633

Claim:
A system for processing financial transactions between first and second parties, comprising: a first financial institution having an electronic communication link for providing access to a credit instrument for the first party; a second financial institution having an electronic communication link for acquiring transactions from the second party; an association having an electronic communication link to the first financial institution for providing data processing services; and a transaction processing center operating with electronic communication links between the second financial institution and the association, wherein the transaction processing center includes: (a) a data separation processor receiving and separating the transactions into high-throughput purchase transactions and low-throughput batch transactions, the data separation processor separating the high-throughput purchase transactions from the low-throughput batch transactions by message content or file attribute associated with the high-throughput purchase transactions and the low-throughput batch transactions, the data separation processor further formatting the high-throughput purchase transactions and the low-throughput batch transactions for transmission through the transaction processing center, (b) a first data processing channel coupled to a first output of the data separation processor and dedicated to transmitting the high-throughput purchase transactions within the system, the first data processing channel being continuously open and active for high-throughput processing, and (c) a second data processing channel, separate from the first data processing channel, coupled to a second output of the data separation processor and dedicated to transmitting the low-throughput batch transactions within the system with a lower system priority than the high-throughput purchase transactions, the second data processing channel including an incoming queue for receiving the low-throughput batch transactions, a data processor for reading the low-throughput batch transactions from the incoming queue and placing the low-throughput batch transactions in local storage, and an outgoing queue for receiving the low-throughput batch transactions from the local storage and transmitting the low-throughput batch transactions through the second output of the data separation processor.