Patent ID: 7039601

Claim:
A method for collecting and transferring monetary gifts, comprising the steps of: establishing a registry by a financial institution, the registry being an electronic database maintained by a central system; creating a record for a customer in the registry; storing customer information in the customer record; creating a gift account for the customer, the gift account associated with the customer record and the gift account assigned a gift account identifier, collecting a deposit of gift funds into the gift account from a contributor through a transaction terminal, the transaction terminal in network communication with the central system, and the transaction terminal further adapted to receive gift account identifiers and search input from contributors; transferring the collected gift funds from the gift account to a customer account at the expiration of a predetermined period of time; releasing a pre-determined percentage of the gift funds for withdrawal by the customer from the customer account; freezing the remaining percentage of the gift funds for a savings period of up to 18 years; and releasing the remaining percentage of the gift funds for withdrawal by the customer from the customer account.