Patent ID: 8560423

Claim:
A method of qualifying a participant over a global network in a transaction requiring a transfer of funds from the participant using a qualifying system, the method comprising: (a) the participant establishing a consumer funding account by depositing funds in the consumer funding account, the consumer funding account to be administered by the qualifying system; (b) the participant accessing the qualifying system and entering a transaction requiring a transfer of funds from the participant to a vendor; (c) the qualifying system reserving a portion of the funds deposited in the consumer funding account according to a transaction parameter determined by at least one of the qualifying system, the participant or the vendor, the reserving step being practiced without the participant providing the funds or any instrument of the funds to the vendor and without transferring the funds or any instrument of the funds from the consumer funding account, wherein an available balance in the consumer funding account consists of an amount of unreserved funds from the funds deposited in the consumer funding account; and (d) the qualifying system qualifying the participant for the transaction if the consumer funding account satisfies conditions of the transaction parameter.