Patent ID: 8676708

Claim:
A method for authorizing a financial transaction of a consumer, comprising: in an account establishment phase: issuing a credit card to a cardholder by a card-issuing financial institution; creating a credit card account associated with the card and the cardholder; creating or designating a deposit account associated with the cardholder; creating a liability payment remittance account associated with the cardholder; associating in a database in a memory of a computer system the credit card with the deposit account and the payment remittance account; and placing or crediting cardholder money in the deposit account; in a transaction authorization phase: receiving a request for authorization for a transaction from a clearing system via a network connected to the clearing system by the card-issuing financial institution; accessing an open to buy file, using a computer processor, to determine if adequate resources exist to complete the transaction, wherein the open to buy file reflects financial aspects of both the card account and the deposit account; and if adequate resources exist, then: authorizing, using the computer processor, a purchase transaction; and transferring funds, utilizing the computer processor, from the deposit account to the payment remittance account; thereby building an outstanding balance on the credit card account; in a payment processing phase, after a predetermined period of time or presentment of the card account balance due: applying, using the computer system, a funds debit or charge to the payment remittance account; and crediting, using the computer system, the credit card account for an amount of payment.