Abstract: A system and method for phone authorized transfers and/or payments are described. The system generates and authorizes instructions for funds transfers and payments between sender and recipient of participating institutions. The participating institutions of the sender and recipient of the funds transfer/payment may be the same or different, and may be located within the same or different countries. The system and method generates and authorizes funds transfer/payment instructions using the phone number of the recipient as identifying information and without providing banking particulars of the recipient. In some embodiments, the system implements an interactive voice response (IVR) application allowing a user to interact with the system using voice prompts responsive to the user's spoken response in the telephone receiver or the user input on the keypad of the user's touch-tone wired or wireless telephone.