Systems and methods for bill pay with credit card funding

Abstract

An Internet based bill payment system and method is provided that allows a consumer to push payments and/or information to any payee from the consumer's credit card account. One embodiment of the invention allows the customer to make a payment to any payee from an enterprise credit card or any other credit account of the enterprise, referred to as “Bill Pay advance.” One embodiment of the invention is provided which allows an enterprise's consumer credit card customers to sign up for and use the enterprise's bill pay advance system, whether or not the consumer has a demand deposit account (DDA) account. The invention allows the customer to designate either source of funds for payment and for any payee they choose to pay. One embodiment of the invention offers an interchange push methodology with customer choice of the payment source of funds and intelligent routing.

1 . A computer-implemented method for a bill pay advance with interchange push transaction, comprising the steps of:
 a customer, having a bill pay advance account in a bill pay system and any of:   an affiliated credit card account with a billing cycle in a credit card system having a credit card processor and an affiliated debit card account in a debit card system having a debit card processor, instructing a bill pay system to make a payment of a specified amount to a payee using any of: the customer's credit card account and the customer's debit card account;   responsive to the customer instructing the bill pay system to make the payment using any of: the credit card account and the debit card account, the bill pay system sending transaction related information to an associated partner processing service;   responsive to receiving said transaction related information, said payee requesting payment from an associated payee financial institution;   responsive to receiving said request for payment, said payee financial institution remitting payment to said payee and remitting interchange fees through a coupled card association network to any of: an associated issuer of said customer credit card account and an associated issuer of said customer debit card account as appropriate.   
     
     
         2 . The computer implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the payee remits a bill to the customer. 
     
     
         3 . The computer implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein said instructing a bill pay system to make a payment of a specified amount to a payee is for any of: a onetime payment and a periodic payment. 
     
     
         4 . The computer implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising the step of:
 the customer remitting payments and deposits comprising any of: credit card bill payments, credit card interest, fees to the credit card system, and debit card account deposits.   
     
     
         5 . The computer implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein for eligible transactions, a debit card is designated as a default when the interchange push method is made an option. 
     
     
         6 . A hybrid bill payment system for processing bill payments on a computer network, the system comprising:
 a first option for a customer having a credit card account, wherein said first option offers a bill pay advance process to the customer, whereby the customer is allowed to pay bills from the customer's credit card account; and   a second option for a customer having any of: a credit card account and a debit card account, wherein said second option offers a bill pay advance with interchange push process to the customer, whereby the customer can select to pay for a bill from any of: the customer's credit card account and debit card account.   
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 6 , further comprising:
 a third option comprising a hybrid offering both of said first option and said second option in parallel with customer choice and intelligent routing mechanisms.   
     
     
         8 . A hybrid bill payment system for processing bill payments on a computer network, the system comprising:
 a first option for a customer having a bill pay service acceptable account, wherein said first option offers a bill pay advance process to the customer and wherein the system is configured such that the customer is allowed to pay bills from the customers bill pay service acceptable account; and   a second option for a customer having any of: a credit card account and a debit card account.