Patent ID: 7756786

Claim:
A method for electronically routing billing information over a communications network using an open financial exchange communication protocol, comprising; providing billers and customers to participate in an electronic bill payment and presentment system having a centrally located mainframe system; providing a plurality of customer service providers to interface with one or more of said customers; providing a plurality of biller service providers to interface with one or more of said billers and to collect said billing information from said billers with respect to one or more of said customers; providing a centrally located switching system which allows for server to server, file to server, server to file and file to file connectivity, in part through the use of a file distribution agent, coupled to said bill payment and presentment system for coordinating the routing of messages between said customer service providers and biller service providers; generating at said customer service provider or at said biller service provider mainframe application files comprising said messages; forwarding said mainframe application files in batch mode to said centrally located mainframe system; and converting at said switching system said mainframe application files into Internet accessible addresses for delivery of said messages over the Internet to one or more intended recipients comprising at least one of said customer service providers or said biller service providers.