System and Method for Secure Third-Party Development and Hosting within a Financial Services Network

Abstract

The system and method described herein secures third-party content development and hosts the content development within a financial services network. According to an aspect of the described technique, a development account uniquely identifying authorized developers is established on a development server, developed content is posted to the development account, and an automated validation agent validates the developed content.

1 . A method for developing content for an on-line system, the method comprising:
 establishing a development account and storage space on a development server, uniquely identifying authorized developers;   posting developed content to the development account space on the development server; and   invoking an automated validation agent to validate the developed content, before promoting the developed content to a production level of the system.   
     
     
         2 . A method according to  claim 1 , wherein establishing the biller development account comprises:
 registering third-party certifications with the development system, uniquely identifying third-party developers.   
     
     
         3 . A method according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining whether the third-party developed content passed validation; and   propagating third-party content files from the development server to a production server for dissemination to one or more web servers.   
     
     
         4 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein a user accesses the third-party developed content via the web servers. 
     
     
         5 . A method according to  claim 4 , wherein the web servers host an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) service. 
     
     
         6 . A method according to  claim 5 , wherein the EBPP service includes content developed and hosted independent of the web server. 
     
     
         7 . A method according to  claim 3 , wherein propagating third-party content files to the production server comprises:
 simulating consumer load on the content files; and   propagating the content files to one or more web servers upon successful completion of load testing.   
     
     
         8 . A method according to  claim 1 , wherein the development system comprises a secure development resource to enable authorized third-party content developers to remotely develop content.