Patent ID: 8527381

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of processing account-holder requests to authorize a plurality of recurring third-party transactions for an account at a financial institution on behalf of an account holder, the method comprising: providing, at the financial institution, a pre-existing list of prospective third-party participants to participate in a commercial service offering authorization for recurring third-party transactions with the account holder, wherein the prospective third-party participants include solicited businesses and employers, the solicited businesses and employers not currently enrolled in direct debits or automatic drafts for the account holder; presenting the pre-existing list of prospective third-party participants to the account holder so that the account holder can select which third-party participants that will participate in the third-party transactions; receiving, by a computer, a selection of third-party participants in the form of account-holder requests at the financial institution, to authorize the plurality of recurring third-party transactions, wherein at least one of the selected third-party participants is selected from the pre-existing list; matching, using a computer, at least one specific account-holder request from among the account-holder requests to at least one specific third-party participant from among the list of prospective third-party participants, wherein the account-holder requests comprise at least one direct-deposit request; forwarding the at least one specific account-holder request to the at least one specific third-party participant on behalf of the account holder; and receiving, at the financial institution, at least one participant confirmation from the at least one specific third-party participant, wherein the at least one participant confirmation comprises a confirmation that the at least one specific third-party participant's accounting system has been updated based on the at least one specific account-holder request; forwarding, from the financial institution, the at least one participant confirmation of the at least one specific request to the account holder, wherein the forwarding is accomplished in accordance with account-holder communication preferences stored in an account-holder profile, wherein the account-holder profile consists of a company identifier for the third party participants, a company address for third-party participants, contact information for third-party participants, and formatting information for third-party participant transaction requests or returned responses; and adding to the account-holder profile the at least one third-party participant associated with the at least one participant confirmation and thereby authorizing third-party recurring transactions involving the at least one third-party participant and the account-holder.