Patent ID: 8521646

Claim:
A system for making payments from a payer of a group of payers to a vendor of a group of vendors and assessing a transaction fee to the vendor, the system comprising: in association with each payer of the group of payers, the following data stored in a non transient computer readable media: a rate tier sub database identifying a transaction fee percentage applicable to each rate tier of a group of rate tiers; a vendor sub database identifying each vendor in a subgroup of vendors to which the payer makes payment, the subgroup of vendors being fewer vendors than the community of vendors; and within the vendor sub database, in association with each vendor of the subgroup of vendors, identification a selected rate tier assigned to the vendor, the selected rate tiers being one of the rate tiers of the group of rate tiers; a rate tier assignment application, the rate tier assignment application comprising instructions stored in a non transient computer readable media and executed by a processor, for determining the selected rate tier for each vendor identified in the vendor sub database, the instructions comprising: looking up an industry sensitivity score to assign to the vendor, the industry sensitivity score being a score value assigned to an industry in which the vendor participates and is representative of historical fee rates that have been accepted by other participants in the industry in which the vendor participates; calculating an overall score for the vendor, the overall score being a function of at least the industry sensitive score assigned to the vendor; looking up a selected rate tier associated with the overall score calculated for the vendor and writing the selected rate tier to the vendor sub database in association with the vendor; a payment application for executing a payment from the a selected payer to a selected vendor, the payment application comprising instructions stored in a non transient computer readable media and executed by a processor, the instructions comprising: looking up, in the vendor sub database associated with the selected payer, the selected rate tier associated with the selected vendor; looking up, in the rate tier sub database, the transaction fee percentage associated with the selected rate tier associated with the selected vendor; determining a transaction fee to apply to the payment, the transaction fee being a product of the amount of the payment multiplied by the transaction fee percentage associated with the selected rate tier associated with the selected vendor; initiating payment to an account of the selected vendor a net amount equal to the payment less the transaction fee.