Patent ID: 7225156

Claim:
In a method of making a payment from a payer to a merchant over a public computer network of the type where the payment involves the merchant accepting a proposed payment in the form of an account number having a standard syntax from the payer at completion of a purchase, followed by the merchant requesting an authorization for the proposed payment from a financial institution, the improvement comprising the following acts: a) providing a trusted third party on line service which is accessible on the public computer network and which has access to an inter-bank computer network; b) the trusted third party on line service allowing a persistent channel to be established with the payer prior to completion of the purchase with the merchant, wherein the persistent channel is a two way electronic communication between the payer and the trusted third party, which is different from a channel used to communicate with the merchant, and which once opened is available for communication and verification until terminated; c) the trusted third party on line service obtaining a valid account number of the payer and authenticating the payer, wherein the valid account number is in the standard syntax; d) the trusted third party service examining the valid account number prior to completion of the purchase; e) if the valid account number does not contain a routing code which will direct it to the trusted third party on line service, then the trusted third party service assigning an alternative account number to the payer for a transaction, said alternative account number comprising a routing code which will cause the transaction to be routed to the trusted third party on line service when submitted by the merchant for authorization; f) if the payer requests an alternative account number when the persistent channel is established, then the trusted third party assigning an alternative account number to the payer comprising a routing code which will cause the transaction to be routed to the trusted third party online service when submitted by the merchant for authorization; g) the trusted third party on line service receiving the proposed payment submitted by the merchant; h) the trusted third party on line service verifying that the persistent channel with the payer remains available after receipt of the proposed payment; i) if the channel is not available, the trusted third party on line service issuing an instruction on the inter-bank network to decline the proposed payment with the merchant; and j) if the channel is available, the trusted third party on line service issuing an instruction on the inter-bank network to complete the proposed payment with the merchant from the valid account, whereby the payer is authenticated and the proposed payment is authorized, if at all, in a single integrated process conducted without the involvement of the merchant based on the persistent channel between the trusted third party on line service and the payer.