Systems and methods of direct account transfer

Abstract

A financial institution and a payment initiator may exchange public keys to enable the secure exchange of data. A business wishing to collect payment can provide its account information to the payment initiator. A customer wishing to pay can instruct the payment initiator to encrypt the business's account information along with details for a particular invoice and transmit the information to the financial institution. The financial institution can decrypt the information and initiate a transfer of money from the customer to the business. The financial institution may present the information about the transaction to the customer for modification or confirmation before initiating the transfer. The information may be sent from the payment initiator to the financial institution via the customer. After the payment has been initiated by the financial institution, a confirmation may be sent to the customer, the payment initiator, the business, or any suitable combination thereof.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 receiving, from a machine, a request to pay an amount to an entity through a user account;   responsive to the request to pay:
 sending encrypted data to the machine; and 
 redirecting the machine to a website associated with the user account; and 
   receiving an indication, from the website, that the amount was transferred from the user account to an account of the entity.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the encrypted data includes at least one of the following: data identifying a bank of the user, an identity of the user, the amount, a description associated with an invoice, and data identifying the account of the entity. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the transfer of the amount from the user account to the account of the entity does not transfer the amount through an intermediate account. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the indication indicates that the amount was transferred via Automated Clearing House (ACH). 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein:
 the account of the user is a bank account; and   the encrypted data is encrypted using a public key of the bank.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , further comprising receiving the public key of the bank from the bank. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the encrypted data is signed using a private key. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising sending a public key corresponding to the private key to the bank. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving, from the entity, a payment request, the payment request including an identity of the user, the amount, a description associated with the invoice, and data identifying the account of the entity; and   presenting the payment request and a payment button on the machine, the payment request identifying the amount owed by the user to the entity, the payment button being associated with an option to pay the amount to the entity through a bank of the user.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 presenting an invoice and a payment button to a client device of a user, the invoice identifying an amount owed by the user to an entity, the payment button being associated with an option to pay the amount to the entity; and   in response to activation of the payment button, presenting a user interface operable to select a financial institution associated with the user account.   
     
     
         11 . A system comprising:
 a memory; and   one or more modules coupled to the memory and configured to:   receive, from a machine, a request to pay the an amount to an entity through a user account;   responsive to the request to pay:
 send encrypted data to the machine; and 
 redirecting the machine to a website associated with the user account; and 
   receive, from the website, an indication indicating the amount was transferred from the user account to an account of the entity.   
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the encrypted data includes at least one of the following: data identifying a bank of the user, an identity of the user, the amount, a description associated with an invoice, and data identifying the account of the entity. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the transfer of the amount from the user account to the account of the entity does not transfer the amount through an intermediate account. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the indication indicates that the amount was transferred via Automated Clearing House (ACH). 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein:
 the account of the user is a bank account; and   the encrypted data is encrypted using a public key of the bank.   
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein:
 the one or more modules are further configured to:
 generate a set of banks based on availability of a public key for each bank of the set of banks in a database; 
 present a user interface operable to select a bank from the set of banks; and 
 detect a selection of the bank in the user interface; and 
   the website associated with the account of the user is associated with the selected bank.   
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the one or more modules are further configured to:
 retrieve data for the payment request from a database;   present a request interface to the entity operable to request payment of the payment request, the user interface including at least a portion of the retrieved data; and   receive a request for payment of the payment request generated via the request interface.   
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 17 , wherein the one or more modules are further configured to:
 responsive to the request for payment of the payment request, send an electronic communication to the user, the electronic communication including a link to a web page hosted by the system; and   wherein the presenting of the payment request and the payment button are in response to an operation of the link.   
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the one or more modules are further configured to:
 receive a login by the user; and   present the payment request to the user in response to the login.   
     
     
         20 . A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
 receiving, from a machine, a request to pay an amount to an entity through a user account;   responsive to the request to pay:
 sending encrypted data to the machine; and 
 redirecting the machine to a website associated with the user account; and 
   receiving an indication, from the website, that the amount was transferred from the user account to an account of the entity.