Patent ID: 7146342

Claim:
A method of payment of goods and services in an electronic commerce system, utilizing at least a customer agent and a merchant agent, at least one account manager associated with said agents for administration of customer accounts and merchant accounts, and at least a mediating trusted agent associated with one of said account managers and said merchant agent for checking purchases made by a customer from a merchant, said customer agent, merchant agent, account manager, and mediating trusted agent being interconnectable by a communications network, comprising: said merchant agent receiving an order of goods or service from said customer agent; a customer account manager receiving an initiation message sent from said customer agent, said message including data for registration of said customer agent and order information; said customer account manager processing the initiation message, and in response to receiving the initiation message, providing said customer agent with account data during a trading session being established between said customer agent and said merchant agent over the network; said customer account manager amending the initiation message with the account data and forwarding said amended initiation message to said mediating trusted agent for registration of said customer; said customer account manager delivering a deposit to said mediating trusted agent; said merchant agent receiving an information message including said deposit; in response to reception of at least one purchase order from said customer agent, said merchant agent determining whether the value of said at least one purchase equals or exceeds the value of the deposit received in the information message; and when the value of at least one purchase equals or exceeds the value of the deposit, stopping the trading session, wherein said initiation message includes an amount of the deposit, a transaction identity, the identity of the merchant, and an identity for locating a mediating trusted agent, wherein said initiation message includes the deposit, a customer identifier, said transaction identity, and the identity of the merchant, and wherein said information message includes the deposit, a trading session identity, and said customer identifier.