Patent Issued for System and Method for Flexible Deferred Payment Terms

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Journal of Engineering -- From Alexandria, Virginia, VerticalNews journalists report that a patent by the inventors Ang, Mark (Scottsdale, AZ); Choudhuri, Boudhayan (Phoenix, AZ); Kaplan, Jessica (New York, NY); Lowy, David (New York, NY); Narayan, Gyanesh (Scottsdale, AZ); Nielsen, Eric (New York, NY); Vega, Christine (South Orange, NJ), filed on June 18, 2009, was cleared and issued on December 4, 2012.

The patent's assignee for patent number 8326747 is American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (New York, NY).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "Various programs have been established to enable consumers and businesses to conveniently and timely facilitate purchases based on a line of credit. Consumers may enjoy some tangible value from utilizing a cash-back card, or a interest-free revolving credit card. However, such cards often include only one feature and/or the interest-free benefit is limited to a short-term, namely only 12-15 months of no interest. In contrast, recent research has demonstrated that choice and flexibility provide a much greater tangible value for a segment of small business consumers, and a value that is not being provided today by transaction card companies.

"Improved cash flow management is a core need of any consumer and small business. There are many financial tools that exist to help small businesses and consumers with cash flow management (e.g. lines of credit, promotional periods on credit cards, loans etc.). However, none of these products sufficiently combine these features on a transaction card in a manner which provides easy accessibility and broad scale reach. As such, a need exists for a line of credit that combines the features of existing financial tools to provide the level of payment flexibility that is often desirable when considering the uncertainties typically associated with small business administration."

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, VerticalNews correspondents also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "The invention provides consumers with payment term options for their transaction accounts. In general, a consumer may choose to pay a periodic payment early to receive a payment discount, defer a payment until the next payment cycle without incurring additional interest and fees, or submit a payment in accordance with the standard transaction account requirements.

"When receiving a payment according to an early payment term, in one embodiment, the method comprises: receiving a payment from the consumer in response to a billing statement; determining when the payment is an early payment based on an early payment date; retrieving a discount rate, wherein the discount rate is determined by comparing an amount of the early pay eligible spend to an early payment tier; calculating an early payment credit based on the early pay eligible spend and the discount rate; and, posting the early payment credit to an account of the consumer.

"When receiving a payment according to a deferred payment term, in one embodiment, the method comprises receiving an election for the deferred payment term from the consumer in response to a billing statement; determining when the election does not exceed a predetermined number of available deferred payments to determine when the consumer is eligible for the deferred payment; moving a non-deferred balance to a deferred balance when the non-deferred balance is greater than zero and an account of the consumer is current; calculating a new current defer pay option (i.e., an amount the consumer is able to defer on the next billing cycle) based on the deferred balance and a new non-deferred balance; and, incrementing a deferred payment counter.

"When posting a payment according to the deferred payment term, in one embodiment, the method comprises receiving a transaction; determining a type of the transaction; adding an amount of the transaction to an outstanding balance, when the type is a debit; offsetting an account balance starting with a delinquency with the amount of the transaction, when the type is a credit; and, offsetting an account balance starting with a delinquency with the amount of the transaction, when the type is a payment."

For additional information on this patent, see: Ang, Mark; Choudhuri, Boudhayan; Kaplan, Jessica; Lowy, David; Narayan, Gyanesh; Nielsen, Eric; Vega, Christine. System and Method for Flexible Deferred Payment Terms. U.S. Patent Number 8326747, filed June 18, 2009, and issued December 4, 2012. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=23&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1139&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=20121204.PD.&OS=ISD/20121204&RS=ISD/20121204

Keywords for this news article include: American Express Travel Related Services Company Inc.

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