Methods and systems for message-based bill payment

A bill payment computing platform for message-based bill management enabled by a host server module, the bill payment computing platform comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a non-transitory computer executable code embodied in a computer readable medium executable by the one or more processors, the bill payment computing platform further comprising:
• a bill handling facility configured by the computer executable code to connect to a plurality of merchant portals through a data network, and to handle a plurality of bills of a plurality of merchants received from the plurality of merchant portals for a consumer through the bill handling facility;
• a short messaging communications component of a messaging facility configured by the computer executable code to receive a bill of the plurality of bills from a merchant of the plurality of merchants through the bill handling facility and present the bill to the consumer through the data network via a short message format, the short messaging communications component further configured by the computer executable code to receive a message through the data network via the short message format from the consumer relating to the bill, wherein the short messaging communications component is configured by the computer executable code to manage a plurality of messages related to the plurality of bills to the consumer within a single thread of short messaging service (SMS) communications;
• a secure transaction component of a transaction-facility configured by the computer executable code to automatically authenticate the consumer prior to initiating a bill payment from the consumer and to initiate a payment from the consumer to the merchant upon the completing the authentication and receiving an approval to initiate the bill payment from the consumer through the short messaging communications component;
• a message interpretation component of the messaging facility configured by the computer executable code to process a message received from the consumer at the short message communications component according to one or more keywords and an identification of one of the plurality of merchants by a mapping component, wherein the message interpretation component is further configured by the computer executable code to automatically disambiguate the message by analyzing a combination of (i) the one or more keywords sent by the consumer, (ii) a message context including a messaging history of the consumer, (iii) historical consumer behavior of the consumer, and (iv) a status of the consumer including at least whether the consumer has an outstanding bill for payment, wherein the message interpretation component is further configured by the computer executable code to initiate a bill-related processing action based on the disambiguation;
• and
• a regulatory compliance component that is configured by the computer executable code to automatically provide a plurality of disclosures to the consumer in connection with a bill collection process and is configured by the computer executable code to automatically prompt a plurality of authorizations from the consumer prior to initiating taking of a bill payment from the consumer, wherein the plurality of disclosures and the plurality of authorizations are configured in the platform to satisfy regulatory guidelines.