Patent ID: 7502760

Claim:
A method for a computing system of a third-party authorization system to automatically provide financial payments from bank accounts of parties in accordance with predefined instructions of the parties, the method comprising: receiving multiple requests that are each for a financial payment to be provided from a provider party to a recipient party, each of the requests including an indication of a reference that was previously associated by the authorization system with a payment instruction set defined by the provider party for use in controlling payments from a bank account of the provider party, the reference for use in indicating the defined payment instruction set associated with the reference; and for each of the received requests for a financial payment to be provided from a provider party to a recipient party, automatically providing the requested financial payment if it is determined to be authorized by, obtaining the defined payment instruction set that is associated with the reference included in the request; automatically determining whether the obtained payment instruction set authorizes providing the requested financial payment to the recipient party from an indicated bank account of the provider party; and if it is determined that the obtained payment instruction set authorizes the providing of the requested financial payment, automatically withdrawing from the indicated bank account of the provider party an amount that is at least the requested financial payment and providing at least a portion of the requested financial payment to the recipient party.