ELECTRONIC BILL PRESENTMENT AND PAYMENT SYSTEM WHICH DETERS CHEATING BY EMPLOYING HASHES AND DIGITAL SIGNATURES

摘要

An electronic bill presentment and payment system (Fig. 1) includes multiplebiller computers (10-n), a bill presentment computer (20), and multiplecustomer computers (30-m). Each biller computer stores complete bills (CBILL)for the customer of a corresponding biller, and the bill presentment computerstores a respective summary (SBILL) of each complete bill along with a hash ofthat complete bill which is digitally signed by the biller computerSb(H(CBILL)). Each particular customer computer makes a payment on a selectedcomplete bill by generating a payment message (step S24 of Fig. 4) whichincludes: a) the hash of the selected complete bill digitally signed by thebiller computer; and b) an authorization to pay a specified amount of funds onthe selected complete bill, both of which are digitally signed by thatparticular customer computer Sc[$X,Sb(H(CBILL))]. This payment messageis stored in a closing record for use in resolving issues regarding whether ornot the bill was changed after payment was authorized, and whether or not analleged payment on the selected bill was authorized.