Patent ID: 8249986

Claim:
A system comprising: at least one processor; a merchant control module, implemented by the at least one processor, to control activities of a financial account based on transactions initiated by a holder of the financial account between the holder of the financial account and at least one merchant, the at least one merchant being a merchant whom the holder of the financial account is either permitted to engage in a transaction or not permitted to engage in a transaction, a determination of whether the merchant is a permitted or not permitted merchant being controlled by a user different than the holder of the financial account; an account management module to enable the user to control at least one capability of the financial account, the financial account being a funded secondary financial account linked to a funded primary financial account of the user; and a security management module to manage a security level selected from a sliding scale of a plurality of security levels to be assigned to the secondary account, each security level of the plurality of security levels of the sliding scale indicating a different level of approval constraints and feature limits to be applied to secondary accounts such that high security levels of the sliding scale require approval by the user of the funded primary financial account for a transaction involving the secondary account.