Patent ID: 7937299

Claim:
A method for processing a financial transaction, comprising: obtaining, by a check processing service from a merchant, information about a transaction involving a check-related payment to the merchant in exchange for goods or service, said information not having an actual monetary transaction amount, said check-related payment being associated with an account from which funds are to be drawn; determining, by the check processing service, a likely monetary transaction amount for said transaction based on said information and at least one of (i) a type of goods or service associated with the merchant, the type of goods or service determined utilizing a merchant identifier included in the information to access a stored merchant profile, or (ii) one or more previous transactions involving the merchant; and determining, by the check processing service, whether to allow said transaction based on said likely monetary transaction amount and without placing a hold on said account for said transaction, wherein the above steps are performed by one or more computers associated with the check processing service.