Patent ID: 8180705

Claim:
A system to initiate an electronic funds transfer, comprising: a first mobile device of a consumer conducting a sales transaction, comprising functionality to: display a notification of the sales transaction requesting payment by the electronic funds transfer using an automated clearing house (ACH) transaction, obtain, in response to the notification and prior to submitting the payment of the sales transaction by the consumer, a digital image of an executed check executed by the consumer to complete a transfer entry form of the ACH transaction, wherein the ACH transaction comprises debiting a pre-existing financial account controlled by the consumer at a depository financial institution, wherein the executed check is not submitted for the sales transaction, and submit, in response to obtaining the digital image, the payment of the sales transaction by: extracting check data from the digital image, wherein the check data comprises a signature of the consumer and consumer financial account information of the pre-existing financial account, obtaining an authorization from the consumer for authorizing the depository financial institution to issue the ACH transaction, wherein the authorization is based on the signature of the consumer extracted from the digital image, and instantiating the transfer entry form to obtain a transfer entry package, wherein the transfer entry package comprises the notification, a verification of the authorization, and the consumer financial account information; a payment engine operatively connected to the first mobile device and comprising functionality to: transmit the notification to the first mobile device, and transmit the transfer entry package to the depository financial institution to initiate the electronic funds transfer using the ACH transaction; and a payment repository operatively connected to the payment engine and comprising functionality to store a record of the transfer entry package and the authorization.