US 7,890,421 B2 · System and method for administering multiple lines of credit

Abstract

Ways are provided to allow a credit card issuing financial institution and the card member to customize a credit card account by defining an unlimited number of special-purpose lines of credit, while maintaining the overall risk at or below the overall line of credit. The individual specialized lines of credit share the overall line of credit, where the total amount of credit actually extended to the card member based on one or more of the specialized lines of credit is limited by the overall line of credit. To provide flexibility in allocating credit toward a plurality of different expenses, the sum of all of the individual lines of credit is preferably greater than the overall line of credit. Therefore, numerous special-purpose lines of credit are created for promotional, budgetary, fraud prevention, or other purposes, without negatively affecting the consumer's credit profile and/or credit score.

Claims21

Dependent claims

For a consumer financial account associated with a credit card having an overall credit line and a plurality of specialized credit lines, each of the credit lines comprising a limit, where a sum of the limits corresponding to each of the plurality of specialized credit lines exceeds the limit of the overall credit line, a method of encouraging particular behavior by the consumer, the method comprising:

receiving, via an electronic payment network, financial information associated with the consumer in an electronic credit transaction request comprising one of a balance transfer request and a purchase transaction request;
storing the electronic credit transaction request including the financial information in a computer readable memory of a consumer database server;
in response to receiving the electronic transaction request, causing a payment processing server to:
(a) process the financial information in the electronic transaction request to determine a suitable adjustment to the financial account for the consumer;
and
(b) automatically implementing a dynamic adjustment of the limit for at least one specialized credit line associated with the financial account from a first limit to a second limit in accordance with the determined suitable adjustment, wherein the payment processing server adjusts the limit for the at least one specialized credit line independent from the limit of the overall credit line.

3 more elements

For a consumer financial account associated with a credit card having an overall credit line and a plurality of specialized credit lines, each of the credit lines comprising a limit, where a sum of the limits corresponding to each of the plurality of specialized credit lines exceeds the limit of the overall credit line, a system for encouraging particular behavior by the consumer, the system comprising:

a database for storing financial information associated with the consumer, the financial information received in an electronic credit transaction request communicated via an electronic payment network, the electronic credit transaction request comprising one of a balance transfer request and a purchase transaction request;
a payment processing server having stored thereon computer executable instructions for, in response to receiving the electronic transaction request:
(a) processing the financial information in the electronic transaction request to determine a suitable adjustment to the financial account for the consumer;
and
(b) automatically implementing a dynamic adjustment of the limit for at least one specialized credit line associated with the financial account from a first limit to a second limit in accordance with the determined suitable adjustment, the payment processing server adjusting the limit for the at least one specialized credit line independent from the limit for the overall credit line.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for administering multiple lines of credit

Life of this patent

System and method for administering multiple lines of credit

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21