Abstract: An automated computer based payment system and method allows a variety of different payment requesting sources to be coupled to a variety of payment processors. An integrated payment engine receives payment requests from the payment requesting sources and generates therefrom payment instructions that are delivered to the payment processors. The integrated payment engine employs profile information defining payment requesting source and payment processor preferences and requirements to generate the payment instructions from the payment requests. Additional and/or different payment requesting sources and payment processors can be integrated into the system easily by modifying the profile information. The integrated payment engine also employs flexible risk and operational preferences to generate automatically a payment instruction which will implement the payment request so as to optimize a balance of factors associated with making a payment, such as risk and cost.

Abstract: An improved system and an associated method for entering, updating, and maintaining information relating to payees is disclosed which includes data supplied by consumers, data contained in biller invoices, and data relating to the mechanisms to be used for payment of billers. The payee information management system of the present invention maintains proprietary biller remittance information in a database which is separate from the database containing consumer/payee information which has been provided by consumers, eliminating the need to place remittance information in entries for each payee of each consumer, thereby making the consumer/payee database substantially smaller and more efficient. The payee information management system of the present invention also has a standard set of payee data which is available to send to third parties to obtain further bill payment business without requiring that proprietary biller remittance information be divulged.