Patent ID: 7930235

Claim:
A method for operating an agency payment system for transactions covered by a virtual market control entity between participants in said agency payment system with said virtual market control entity, said transactions being for daily delivery of a commodity product over a set delivery period, said agency payment system having a data entry device, a database, a calculating means, a computing means, and a processor, said method comprising the steps of: entering into said database with said data entry device required amounts of product to be delivered and a delivery period in connection with each transaction, a cost for the product and calculating the daily product cost for a notional amount of product to be delivered between participants on a single day during the delivery period for each transaction; determining with said calculating means, during the delivery period for each transaction, for each participant to each transaction, daily payment of the daily product cost required to be made to the virtual market control entity or to be received from the virtual market control entity; determining with said computing means all payments of daily product costs required to be made and received on a given day by the virtual market control entity, acting solely as an agent for each participant, so as to determine the amount of a potential default by each participant for each transaction at the end of each day; netting, with said processor, the amounts payable and receivable at the end of each day separately for each participant including all of each participant's required payments of daily product costs made to the virtual market control entity, and all daily delivery costs by other participants to said virtual market control entity, which correspond to said virtual market control entity owing the daily delivery cost to the participant, which are due to the participant, to obtain a net cash single payment movement, either from the virtual market control entity to each participant's bank account or from each participant's bank account to the virtual market control entity; and transferring said net cash single payment movement for each participant either from the virtual market control entity to each participant's bank account or from each participant's bank account to the virtual market control entity as calculated by the netting step.