초록 ▼

A system and method for validating a relationship between a user and a user account at a financial institution includes a data communication device, a memory, a processor coupled to the memory, and an account validation module executable by the processor. The account validation module generates a ve

A system and method for validating a relationship between a user and a user account at a financial institution includes a data communication device, a memory, a processor coupled to the memory, and an account validation module executable by the processor. The account validation module generates a verification identifier for storage in the memory and is provided to the user, and subsequently receives a user initiated financial transaction involving the user account at the financial institution. The received financial transaction includes a comparison identifier supplied by the user. The account validation module determines whether the comparison identifier corresponds to the verification identifier for purposes of validating the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial institution.

대표청구항 ▼

What is claimed is: 1. A payment service system for making electronic payments from a payment service account associated with a user, the payment service account being funded by financial transactions transferring money to the payment service account from a user account maintained at a financial in

What is claimed is: 1. A payment service system for making electronic payments from a payment service account associated with a user, the payment service account being funded by financial transactions transferring money to the payment service account from a user account maintained at a financial institution, the payment service system comprising: a communication device; a memory; a processor coupled to the memory and communication device; and an account validation module executable by the processor and adapted to: store in the memory user account information received from a user, generate a verification identifier associated with the user account maintained at the financial institution, provide a first copy the verification identifier to the user, store a second copy of the verification identifier in the memory, receive, from the financial institution, a user initiated financial transaction involving the user account at the financial institution through the communication device, the received financial transaction including the first copy of the verification identifier, wherein the first copy of the verification identifier is supplied to the financial institution by the user for inclusion in the user initiated financial transaction, determine whether the first copy of the verification identifier contained in the received user initiated financial transaction corresponds to the second copy of the verification identifier stored in the memory, based on a successful determination that the received first copy of the verification identifier corresponds with the stored second copy of the verification identifier, store verification information in the memory to indicate that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated; the account validation module further adapted to complete one or more subsequent user initiated financial transactions involving the user account at the financial institution based on the stored verification information without further validating the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial institution. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the account validation module: receives, from the user, user account information including first financial institution information concerning the financial institution maintaining the user account; receives, from the user initiated financial transaction, second financial institution information concerning the financial institution involved in the financial transaction; and determines whether the first financial institution information matches the second financial institution information as part of the validation of the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial institution. 3. The system according to claim 2, wherein each of the first and second financial institution information includes a routing number and an account number. 4. The system according to claim 2, wherein each of the first and second financial institution information further includes a routing number, an account number and a name of a financial institution. 5. The system according to claim 2, wherein the account validation module includes a user registration module adapted to: receive user profile data from the user which includes the user account information; and create an internal user account for the user with the received user profile data. 6. The system according to claim 5, wherein the user registration module is further adapted to generate a secure account identifier associated with the internal user account, the secure account identifier being inaccessible to the user. 7. The system according to claim 6, wherein the financial transaction includes a deposit and the account validation module is adapted to transfer the deposit to the internal user account. 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the stored verification information is a verification flag that is set by the account validation module to indicate that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated. 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the stored second copy of the verification identifier is generated by hashing the verification identifier. 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the stored second copy of the verification identifier is an exact duplicate of the verification identifier. 11. A payment service system for making electronic payments from a payment service account associated with a user, the payment service account being funded by financial transactions transferring money to the payment service account from a user account maintained at a financial institution, the payment service system comprising: a communication device; a memory; a processor coupled to the memory and the communication device; and an account validation module executable by the processor and adapted to store in the memory user profile data received from the user and containing an account identifier of the user account, the account validation module further adapted to generate a verification identifier, provide a first copy of the verification identifier to the user and store a second copy of the verification identifier in the memory, the account validation module further adapted to receive a user initiated financial transaction from the financial institution involving the user account at the financial institution through the communication device, the received financial transaction including the first copy of the verification identifier and a source account identifier, wherein the first copy of the verification identifier is supplied to the financial institution by the user for inclusion in the user initiated financial transaction, and store a verification information in the memory based on a successful determination that the received first copy of the verification identifier corresponds with the stored second copy of the verification identifier and the received source account identifier corresponds to the account identifier contained in the stored user profile data, the stored verification information indicating that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated; the account validation module further adapted to complete one or more subsequent user initiated financial transactions involving the user account at the financial institution based on the stored verification information without further validating the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial institution. 12. The system according to claim 11, wherein the account validation module requests the user to initiate the financial transaction at the financial institution with the first copy of the verification identifier. 13. The system according to claim 11, wherein after receiving the user initiated financial transaction, the account validation module: retrieves the account identifier contained in the stored user profile data; and determines whether the retrieved account identifier matches the source account identifier contained in the user initiated financial transaction. 14. The system according to claim 11, wherein each of the account identifier in the stored user profile date and the source account identifier includes a routing number and an account number. 15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the account identifier in the stored user profile data further includes name of a financial institution. 16. The system according to claim 11, wherein the verification identifier includes an alphanumeric string. 17. The system according to claim 11, wherein the account validation module is adapted to create an internal user account associated with the user profile data. 18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the account validation module is adapted to generate a secure reference identifier associated with the internal user account, the secure reference identifier being inaccessible to the user. 19. The system of claim 17, wherein the financial transaction includes a deposit and the account validation module is adapted to transfer the deposit to the internal user account. 20. The system of claim 11, wherein the stored verification information is a verification flag that is set by the account validation module to indicate that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated. 21. The system of claim 11, wherein the stored second copy of the verification identifier is generated by hashing the verification identifier. 22. The system of claim 11, wherein the stored second copy of the verification identifier is an exact duplicate of the verification identifier. 23. A method of validating a relationship between a user and a user account maintained at a financial institution comprising: generating a verification identifier at a payment system; the payment system providing a first copy of the verification identifier to the user and storing a second copy of the verification identifier in a memory of the payment system; receiving, at the payment system, a user initiated financial transaction involving the user account at the financial institution, the received financial transaction including the first copy of the verification identifier, wherein the first copy of the verification identifier is supplied to the financial institution by the user for inclusion in the user initiated financial transaction; the payment system retrieving the second copy of the verification identifier from the memory; the payment system determining whether the received first copy of the verification identifier corresponds to the retrieved second copy of the verification identifier for purposes of validating the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial institution; based on a successful determination that the received first copy of the verification identifier corresponds with the retrieved second copy of the verification identifier, the payment system storing verification information to indicate that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated; receiving, at the payment system, one or more subsequent user initiated financial transactions involving the user account at the financial institution; and completing the one or more subsequent user initiated financial transactions based on the stored verification information without further validating the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial institution. 24. The method according to claim 23, wherein: before the step of providing the first copy of the verification identifier to a user, the method further comprising receiving, from the user, user account information including first financial information concerning the financial institution maintaining the user account; the received financial transaction includes second financial institution information concerning the financial institution involved in the financial transaction; and the method further comprises determining by the processor whether the first financial institution information matches the second financial institution information. 25. The method according to claim 24, wherein each of the first and second financial institution information includes a routing number and an account number. 26. The method according to claim 25, wherein each of the first and second financial institution information further includes a name of a financial institution. 27. The method according to claim 24, further comprising: receiving user profile data from the user, the user profile data including the user account information; and creating an internal user account for the user associated with the user profile data. 28. The method according to claim 27, further comprising: generating a secure account identifier for the internal user account; and associating the secure account identifier with the user profile data; wherein the secure account identifier is inaccessible to the user. 29. The method according to claim 27, wherein the financial transaction includes a deposit and the method further comprises transferring the deposit to the internal user account. 30. The method of claim 23, wherein the stored verification information is a verification flag that is set by the payment system to indicate that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated. 31. The method of claim 23, wherein the stored second copy of the verification identifier is generated by hashing the verification identifier. 32. The method of claim 23, wherein the stored second copy of the verification identifier is an exact duplicate of the verification identifier. 33. A method of validating a relationship between a user and a user account maintained at a financial institution, comprising: storing user profile data in a memory of a payment system, the user profile data relating to an account of the user with the payment system; storing financial account information in the memory of the payment system in association with the user profile data, the financial account information relating to the user account maintained at the financial institution; the payment system generating a verification identifier; the payment system sending a first copy of the verification identifier to the user and storing a second copy of the verification identifier in the memory in association with the user profile data; receiving, at the payment system, a user initiated financial transaction involving the user account maintained at the financial institution, the received financial transaction including the first copy of the verification identifier and also including account information, wherein the first copy of the verification identifier is supplied to the financial institution by the user for inclusion in the user initiated financial transaction and the account information relates to the user account maintained at the financial institution; the payment system matching the received first copy of the verification identifier with the stored second copy of the verification identifier in order to locate the user profile data in the memory and access the financial account information stored in association with the user profile data; and the payment system determining whether the stored financial account information corresponds to the account information received in the user initiated financial transaction in order to validate the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial transaction. 34. The method of claim 33, further comprising: storing verification information in the memory of the payment system in association with the user profile data based on a successful determination that the stored financial account information corresponds to the account information received in the user initiated financial transaction; and completing one or more subsequent user initiated financial transactions involving the user account maintained at the financial institution based on the stored verification information without further validating the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial transaction. 35. The method of claim 33, wherein the stored verification information is a verification flag that is set by the payment system to indicate that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated. 36. A method of validating a relationship between a user and a user account maintained at a financial institution, comprising: generating a verification identifier at a payment system, wherein a first copy of the verification identifier is provided to the user, and wherein a second copy of the verification identifier is stored at the payment system; receiving a user initiated financial transaction at the payment system, wherein the financial transaction involves the user account and includes the first copy of the verification identifier; validating the relationship between the user and the user account maintained at the financial institution, wherein validating occurs at the payment system, and wherein validating includes determining whether the first copy of the verification identifier included with the financial transaction corresponds to the stored second copy of the verification identifier; generating and storing verification information indicating a successfully validated relationship, wherein the verification information is generated and stored at the payment system; and using the stored validation to complete subsequent user initiated financial transactions at the payment system, wherein subsequent financial transactions do not require relationship validation. 37. The method of claim 36, wherein the stored verification information is a verification flag that is set by the payment system to indicate that the relationship between the user and the user account has been successfully validated.