Patent ID: 8175938

Claim:
A method of facilitating a merchant-initiated payment for an online transaction between a merchant and a user, the method comprising: using at least one processor, establishing a merchant-initiated payment agreement at a payment service provider, the merchant-initiated payment agreement defining terms of a merchant-initiated payment relationship between the merchant and the user, the merchant-initiated payment agreement being established in response to receiving, from the user, a relationship request to establish the merchant-initiated payment agreement, the establishing of the merchant-initiated payment agreement including linking the merchant-initiated payment agreement with a payment account of the merchant or user stored at the payment service provider, the payment service provider being a separate entity from the merchant; after establishing the merchant-initiated payment agreement, receiving at the at least one processor, from the merchant, a payment request associated with the transaction, the payment request including a unique identifier to identify the merchant-initiated payment agreement stored at the payment service provider; verifying that the payment request received from the merchant complies with the terms of the merchant-initiated payment agreement; and based on a verification of the payment request complying with the terms of the merchant-initiated payment agreement, automatically and without user intervention, processing the payment request using the at least one payment processor.