Abstract: A system for making a purchase by a customer from a merchant, wherein an electronic message represents an instruction for payment from an account with a financial institution, includes a method of: associating a public key with identity information regarding the account; receiving by the merchant both encoding information for the electronic message and the identity information; forwarding by the merchant the electronic message, encoding information, and identity information; upon receipt of the electronic message, the encoding information, and identity information, retrieving the public key associated with the identity information; and determining a validation result as a function of the electronic message, the encoding information, and the retrieved public key. Upon successful validation, an account authorization is performed or payment from the account is made.

Abstract: A method of managing accounts by an account authority for the same account holder includes associating identity information for each account with the same public key. A method for establishing a new account for the same account holder with each one of a plurality of account authorities includes associating respective identity information for each account with the same public key of the account holder. A method of setting up an account with account authorities for the later process of validating the identity of a sender of electronic communications representing requests for performance of actions regarding the accounts, each electronic communication including a digital signature and respective sender identity information, includes associating a public key with the account such that the public key later is retrievable following receipt of a communication based on the respective sender identity information in the communication, the public key being the same for each account authority.

Abstract: A system for making a purchase by a customer from a merchant, wherein an electronic message represents an instruction for payment from an account with a financial institution, includes a method of: associating a public key with identity information regarding the account; receiving by the merchant both encoding information for the electronic message and the identity information; forwarding by the merchant the electronic message, encoding information, and identity information; upon receipt of the electronic message, the encoding information, and identity information, retrieving the public key associated with the identity information; and determining a validation result as a function of the electronic message, the encoding information, and the retrieved public key. Upon successful validation, an account authorization is performed or payment from the account is made.

Abstract: A method of managing accounts by an account authority for the same account holder includes associating identity information for each account with the same public key. A method for establishing a new account for the same account holder with each one of a plurality of account authorities includes associating respective identity information for each account with the same public key of the account holder. A method of setting up an account with account authorities for the later process of validating the identity of a sender of electronic communications representing requests for performance of actions regarding the accounts, each electronic communication including a digital signature and respective sender identity information, includes associating a public key with the account such that the public key later is retrievable following receipt of a communication based on the respective sender identity information in the communication, the public key being the same for each account authority.

Abstract: The reliability of electronic encoding, e.g., digital signatures, are incorporated into current business processes to identify the sender of an electronic message as well as the accuracy of the electronic message. An institution records an encoding key and associates it with account information from the sender. This initial recording may be performed using any of the validation procedures utilized today by a business institution. After the initial validation of the encoding key, validating future electronic transactions occurs by including encoding information that can be deciphered using the encoding key initially stored. To validate an electronic transaction, the sender sends the electronic transaction message, the encoding information and sender identity information to the person or institution where the sender desires validation.