System and method for providing a pre-paid commodity-based credit account

A commodity-based credit system, comprising:

• a credit account at a financial institution, the credit account having a monetary value based on market prices of multiple commodities, the credit account funded by a purchase of the multiple commodities via a commodity clearinghouse using funds deposited by an account holder;
• a purchase device associated with the credit account;
• and
• a device reader located remotely from the financial institution, the device reader configured to transmit a transaction amount to the financial institution via a network;
• and
• an alerting module located at the financial institution, the alerting module configured to transmit an alert from the financial institution to the account holder when the market price of any of the multiple commodities changes by a pre-determined percentage in a given time period,
• wherein after receiving the transaction amount from the device reader, the financial institution is configured to sell an amount of at least one of the multiple commodities equal to the transaction amount.

A method for settling purchases in a commodity-based credit system, comprising:

• receiving a deposit at a financial institution computer system;
• funding a credit account by purchasing multiple commodities using the deposit through an automated clearinghouse, the credit account having an account value that fluctuates based on market prices of the multiple commodities;
• transmitting a purchase amount from a remote terminal to the financial institution computer system;
• comparing, at the financial institution computer system, the purchase amount to the account value;
• debiting by the financial institution computer system, the credit account value by the purchase amount;
• transmitting a commodity sale request from the financial institution computer system to the automated clearinghouse;
• selecting to sell, by the automated clearinghouse or the financial institution, at least one of the multiple commodities linked to the credit account;
• selling, by the automated clearinghouse, the selected commodity, based on the commodity sale request;
• transmitting a proceed of the sale of the selected commodity from the automated clearinghouse to the financial institution computer system;
• and
• transmitting an alert from the financial institution computer system to a remote device when the market price of the any of the multiple commodities changes by a pre-determined percentage in a given time period.