Patent ID: 8452704

Claim:
A method for making on-line payments, comprising: receiving enrollment information from a user for an on-line payments service; receiving the user's designation of a source account for withdrawing funds for the on-line payments; providing a transaction account for the user as a money deposit account accessible via a single account number that the user can use both as a source from which to send funds and a destination into which to receive funds and with at least one of a plurality of service levels, wherein the transaction account is not a checking account; wherein providing the transaction account for the user with at least one of the plurality of service levels further comprises: providing the transaction account for the user with a first level of service that includes an on-line person-to-person payment service enabling the user to receive funds from a party other than the user into the user's transaction account and send funds from the user's transaction account to a transaction account of a party other than the user, with a save for later feature enabling the user to accumulate a balance of funds in the user's transaction account for later use, and with a held money feature for retaining funds in the user's transaction account which the user has designated to be sent to a recipient but which has not yet been picked up by the recipient; providing the transaction account for the user with a second level of service that includes all features of the first level of service plus an access card enabling the user to access funds in the user's transaction account for off-line transactions; and providing the transaction account for the user with a third level of service that includes all features of the first and second levels of service plus a credit line enabling the user to access both line of credit funds and accumulated balance funds in the user's transaction account; receiving an email address and payment amount by a payments engine for a recipient from the user at a user terminal via a network; notifying the recipient by email at a recipient terminal by the payments engine of the payment before the recipient is enrolled at the on-line payments service; allowing the user to have funds reside in the transaction account; and allowing the user to use the funds residing in the transaction account for at least one of making an on-line payment with funds in the transaction account, making an online purchase with funds in the transaction account, making an off-line purchase with funds in the transaction account, making a cash withdrawal with funds in the transaction account, making a credit card account payment with funds in the transaction account, making a bill payment with funds in the transaction account, and making an international payment with funds in the transaction account.