COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TRANSFERRING MONEY FROM A SENDER TO A RECIPIENT
20190347651 ยท 2019-11-14
Inventors
Cpc classification
H04L2209/56
ELECTRICITY
H04L9/3239
ELECTRICITY
G06Q20/3678
PHYSICS
H04L9/0637
ELECTRICITY
International classification
G06Q20/40
PHYSICS
Abstract
A system for transferring money includes an electronic communication device running an application for performing a number of tasks including enabling a sender to add a desired amount in a desired currency, provide necessary sender and receiver information including a contact information and unique ID of the receiver and create, encrypt and transfer a transaction information in form of blocks of a blockchain to a distributed blockchain network, having multiple computing nodes to store a portion of the blockchain. An electronic computing device associated with an authorized financial service provider, forming a computing node of the distributed blockchain network, allows to retrieve and decrypt the blocks containing the transaction information and verifies the unique ID and a unique PIN, which is generated by the application and sent to the receiver via the contact information given by the sender, submitted by the receiver for completing an instant cash transaction.
Claims
1. A computer-implemented system for transferring money from a sender to a receiver comprising: an electronic communication device having at least one memory unit for storing a plurality of instructions of an application and at least one processor for processing the plurality of instructions of the application to perform a plurality of tasks including: enabling the sender to add a desired amount in a desired currency utilizing an interactive graphical user interface of the application; provide a plurality of receiver information including at least one contact information and at least one unique identification information of the receiver to perform a secure transaction; encrypt and transfer a transaction information related to the secure transaction stored in form of at least one block of a blockchain; a distributed blockchain network having a plurality of computing nodes, each computing node storing a copy or at least a portion thereof of the blockchain containing the transaction information related to the secure transaction performed by the sender; a secure wireless communication channel enabling communication between the electronic communication device and the computing nodes of the distributed blockchain network for transferring the transaction information; and an electronic computing device associated with an authorized financial service provider for verifying the receiver information including a unique PIN generated by the application, received through the contact information of the provided by the sender, for performing the secure transaction via the secure wireless communication channel; wherein an application running on the electronic computing device associated with the authorized financial service provider communicates with the distributed blockchain network to retrieve and decrypt the at least one block containing the transaction information from the blockchain and verifies the unique identification information and the unique PIN submitted by the receiver for completing an instant cash transaction.
2. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the application running on the electronic communication device shares the unique PIN generated for the secure transaction through the at least one contact information of the receiver selected from an group consisting of an email, phone number, and other secure contacting means.
3. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the transaction information includes a plurality of sender information, the plurality of receiver information including the unique identification information of the receiver, an encrypted code corresponding to the unique PIN generated by the application for the secure transaction and an information related to the desired amount selected by the sender.
4. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the transaction information includes the unique identification information of the receiver selected from a group consisting of a national ID, a government identifier information, an employment ID, a personal banking related information, an educational ID or any other kind of identification information unique to the receiver, wherein the unique identification information, encrypted and stored in the at least one block of the blockchain, is utilized in form of a personal identity verifier of the receiver.
5. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the receiver receives an equivalent amount of the desired amount sent by the sender after deducting a preset service fee for the instant cash transaction upon successful authentication of the receiver using the application.
6. A computer assisted method for transferring money from a sender to a receiver comprising the steps of: providing an electronic communication device having at least one memory unit for storing a plurality of instructions of an application and at least one processor for processing the plurality of instructions of the application to perform a plurality of tasks including: enabling the sender to provide a plurality of information including a plurality of sender information, a plurality of receiver information and a desired amount in a desired currency through an interactive graphical user interface of the application; encrypting a transaction information including the plurality of information received from the sender; storing the transaction information in form of at least one block of a Blockchain; transferring the transaction information using a distributed blockchain network having a plurality of computing nodes, each computing node storing a copy or at least a portion thereof of the blockchain containing the transaction information; utilizing a secure wireless communication channel enabling communication between the electronic communication device and the computing nodes of the distributed blockchain network for transferring the transaction information; receiving the receiver information including a unique PIN generated by the application, received through the at least one email address provided by the sender, using a receiver electronic device for performing a secure transaction via a secure wireless communication channel; and verifying the receiver information including a unique PIN generated by the application and a unique identification information of the receiver utilizing an application launched from an electronic computing device of an authorized financial service provider to authorize an instant cash transaction to the receiver.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein the application running on the electronic communication device is selected from a mobile application or a web application.
8. The method of claim 6, wherein the transaction information transferred in form of the block in the blockchain includes: the plurality of sender information including a name and an address of the Sender; the plurality of receiver information including the unique identification information of the receiver, an encrypted code corresponding to the unique PIN generated by the application for the secure transaction; and an information related to the desired amount and the desired currency set by the sender.
9. The method of claim 6, wherein the electronic computing device of the authorized financial service provider forms the at least one computing node of the distributed blockchain network for retrieving the at least one block of the blockchain containing the transaction information in an encrypted form.
10. The method of claim 6, wherein the application running on the electronic computing device of the authorized financial service provider decrypts the transaction information from the blockchain for verifying the receiver information including the unique identification information of the receiver and the unique PIN generated by the application for the secure transaction.
11. The method of claim 6, wherein the receiver receives an equivalent amount of the desired amount sent by the sender after deducting a preset service fee for the instant cash transaction upon successful authentication of the receiver by the authorized financial service provider.
Description
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0014] To further clarify various aspects of some example embodiments of the present invention, a more particular description of the invention will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof that are illustrated in the appended drawing. It is appreciated that the drawing depicts only illustrated embodiments of the invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope. Elements in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale in order to enhance their clarity and improve understanding of these various elements and embodiments of the invention. Furthermore, elements that are known to be common and well understood to those in the industry are not depicted in order to provide a clear view of the various embodiments of the invention, thus the drawings are generalized in form in the interest of clarity and conciseness. The invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawing in which:
[0015]
[0016]
[0017]
[0018]
[0019]
[0020]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0021] In the following discussion that addresses a number of embodiments and applications of the present invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The embodiments of the present disclosure described below are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosure to the precise forms disclosed in the following detailed description. Rather, the embodiments are chosen and described so that others skilled in the art may appreciate and understand the principles and practices of the present disclosure.
[0022] Glossary of Terms
[0023] As used herein, a computer system or system or computer assisted system or computer implemented system may refer to a networked system having one or more computers and/or other electronic devices, where each computer/electronic device may include computer-readable medium embodying software to operate the computer/electronic device or one or more of its components. Non-limiting examples of a computer system may include: a distributed computer system for processing information via computer systems linked by a network; and, two or more computer systems connected together via a network for transmitting and/or receiving information between the computer systems.
[0024] As used herein, the term processor may refer to any device or portion of a device or apparatus that processes electronic data from registers and/or memory to transform that electronic data into other electronic data that may be stored in registers and/or memory. A computer system may comprise one or more processors.
[0025] As used herein, the term computer-readable medium or storage media or memory unit or non-transitory computer-readable media refers to any medium that participates in providing data, for example, instructions, which may be read by a computer, an electronic device, a processor or a like device. Such a medium may take many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media, and transmission media. Non-volatile media include, for example, optical or magnetic disks and other persistent memory. Volatile media include dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which typically constitutes the main memory. Transmission media include coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, including the wires that comprise a system bus coupled to the processor. Transmission media may include or convey acoustic waves, light waves and electromagnetic emissions, such as those generated during radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) data communications. Common forms of computer-readable media include, for example, a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, DVD, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, an EPROM, a FLASH-EEPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave as described hereinafter, or any other medium from which a computer can read. Various forms of computer readable media may be involved in carrying sequences of instructions to a processor. For example, sequences of instruction (i) may be delivered from RAM to a processor, (ii) may be carried over a wireless transmission medium, and/or (iii) may be formatted according to numerous formats, standards or protocols, such as Bluetooth, TDMA, CDMA, 3G, 4G etc.
[0026] As used herein, the term Application and/or Software refer to all, or a portion, of a computer program or software code that carries out a specific function and may be used alone or combined with other programs. It comprises computer program instructions adapted for execution by a hardware element, such as a processor, wherein the instruction comprise commands that when executed cause the processor to perform a corresponding set of commands. The software may be written or coded using a programming language, and stored using any type of non-transitory computer-readable media or machine-readable media well known in the art. Examples of software in the present disclosure comprise any software components, programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, system programs, machine programs, and operating system software.
[0027] Examples of software code in applications may include: code segments in one or more computer-readable languages; graphical and or/textual instructions; applets; pre-compiled code; interpreted code; compiled code; and computer programs. Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the various embodiments may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, such as: an object oriented programming languages and/or conventional procedural programming languages, and/or programming languages such as, for example, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Dynamic HTML, HTML5, Extensible Markup Language (XML), Extensible Style sheet Language (XSL), Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), Wireless Markup Language (WML), JAVA; JavaScript., JINI, C, C++, Objective C or any language operable on a wireless platform like iOS, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Perl, UNIX Shell, Visual Basic or Visual Basic Script, Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML), ColdFusion; Adobe Flash & related languages; or other compilers, assemblers, interpreters or other computer languages or platforms.
[0028] As used herein, the term Electronic Computing Device or Electronic Communication Device or Electronic Device refers to device comprising at least one processor, a graphical interface user, such as a smartphone, laptop, desktop, tablet, wearable smart device, etc., as well as any device defined herein as a computer.
[0029] As used herein, the term Graphical User Interface or Dynamic Graphical User Interface or Interactive Graphical User Interface refers to all the visually identifiable and/or intractable visuals displayed through a display of the electronic computing device.
[0030] A browser as used herein is not intended to refer to any specific browser, for example, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, or the like, but should be broadly construed to refer to any client-side rendering engine that can access and display Internet-accessible resources. A rich client typically refers to a non-HTTP based client-side application, such as an SSH or CFIS client. The client-server interactions may occur using HTTP or other protocols. The client server interaction may be formatted to conform to the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and travel over HTTP or any other transport mechanism, such as CORBA, for transport over an enterprise intranet, may be used. Any application or functionality described herein may be implemented as native code, by providing hooks into another application, by facilitating use of the mechanism as a plug-in, by linking to the mechanism, and the like.
[0031] As used herein, the term network or communication networks or communication channel may operate with any of a number of protocols, wireless, WiFi, and such as Internet protocol (IP), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), and/or synchronous optical network (SONET), user datagram protocol (UDP), IEEE 802.x.
[0032] Further, the term authorized financial service provider or financial services provider refers to a bank or a financial outlet like western union outlets, or similar money transferring outlets that allows people to either send or receive money instantly or through a bank account. In some instances, the authorized financial service provider or financial services provider refers to an instant cash transfer outlet that allows the customers to send and receive money instantly, even without a bank account, using the present system.
[0033] The following section summarizes some aspects of the present disclosure and briefly introduces some preferred embodiments. Simplifications or omissions in this section as well as in the abstract or the title of this description may be made to avoid obscuring the purpose of this section, the abstract and the title. Such simplifications or omissions are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure nor imply any limitations.
[0034] The present invention relates to a computer-implemented system and associated method for transferring money from a sender to a recipient utilizing blockchain technology, according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. The present system and method forms a blockchain based identity verification and transaction platform that allows the users to transfer the identity and transaction information, which is made available in form of a block forming a part of the blockchain of information, over a distributed blockchain network having a number of computing nodes including the electronic communication devices at the sender's and the receiver's end, according to one or more embodiment of the present invention. The senders performing the cash transaction are allowed to transfer a desired amount in a desired currency from anywhere in the world to a receiver at any location. The senders can also provide the receiver's information such as unique identity information of the receiver, which is encrypted and transferred as blocks of the blockchain transferred over the distributed blockchain network. The receivers can approach any authorized financial service provider associated with the present system and provide the unique identity information of the receiver along with a unique PIN, which is received by the receiver through a communication mode, such as email, selected by the sender during the transfer. The present system performs the data retrieval, decryption and comparison of the information provided by the sender and the receiver to verify the authenticity of the receiver. Once authorized, the receiver receives an amount equivalent to the amount sent by the sender in form of instant cash transaction. In some instances, a flat rate based or transaction amount based service fee is charged, which is deducted from the amount transferred to the receiver. The present system and method is different from the conventional approach in which the senders and the receivers information is stored in centralized servers with conventional firewall and other data protection means. Such conventional systems are always prone to sophisticated data breaches and hacks and makes the conventional money transaction systems insecure. The present system and method, based on the blockchain technology based identity and transaction data transfer and data verification, provides secure storage of the encrypted transaction information including the information related to the senders, receivers and the transaction in a distributed computing environment involving a network of computers connected over a secure network. Thus the present system and method provides a secure platform for making instant cash transactions.
[0035] Before describing the features of the present invention, certain technical terms used in the present invention such as blockchain is described in detail below. As used herein, blockchain refers to a distributed storage platform and network in which individual blocks are connected in a chain. Each block is linked to the previous block in the blockchain by, for example, including a hash of the previous block as a proof of work. Various hash functions, including functions in the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA)-1 or -2 families, such as SHA-256, can be used to perform a one-way hash. For a one-way hash, it is generally considered to be impossible or impractical to generate the input, i.e. the message, to the hash function based on the output i.e. the message digest or digest, of the hash function.
[0036]
[0037] In the present system 100 for transferring money from a sender to a recipient utilizing blockchain technology, the electronic computing devices 102 are in communication with the distributed blockchain network 106 over a secure wireless communication channel or a network 104. The secure wireless communication channel or the network 104 can be the Internet, a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), or other type of network, wired or wireless. The distributed blockchain network 106 can be, for example, one or more server computers, personal computers and other computers connected over the secure wireless communication channel or the network 104 to form the blockchain network. The present system 100 for transferring money from a sender to a recipient utilizing blockchain technology also include one or more computing devices or electronic computing devices 108, such as desktop computers, provided at one or more authorized financial service providers 110, in communication with the distributed blockchain network 106 over the wireless communication channel or the network 104. The electronic computing devices 108 runs an application for enabling communication with the distributed blockchain network 106 to retrieve and decrypt the block containing the transaction information from the blockchain 130 transferred over the distributed blockchain network 106 and verify the receiver for completing an instant cash transaction.
[0038]
[0039]
[0040] The receiver receives the email with the unique PIN number for making the instant cash transaction from any authorized financial service provider 110 through the blockchain based data transfer and authentication method associated with the present system 100. The receiver can submit the unique PIN number and the unique ID of the receiver to the authorized financial service provider 110. The authorized financial service provider 110 authenticates the transaction and the authenticity of the receiver utilizing the application 200 launched from their electronic communication or electronic computing device 108 such as the office computer. In some instances, the authorized financial service provider 110 authenticates the transaction and the authenticity of the receiver utilizing a second application, which is configured to communicate with the distributed blockchain network 106 to retrieve the transaction information sent as blocks of the blockchain 130. The application launched from the electronic communication or electronic computing device 108 of the authorized service provider, which in some instances act as a computing node of the distributed blockchain network 106, extracts the block or blocks 318 to 324, containing the coded transaction information. Once the transaction information is retrieved, the application performs the decryption and allows the authorized service personnel associated with the authorized financial service provider 110 to verify the unique ID and the unique PIN provided by the receiver to perform the secure instant cash transaction. Upon successful authentication, the authorized financial service provider 110 issues an amount equivalent to the amount sent by the sender. In some instance, the authorized financial service provider 110 charges a flat rate or transaction amount based service fee for each transaction. The receivers can receive instant cash in the desired currency of the receiver or a currency set by the sender or the authorized financial service provider 110.
[0041]
[0042] In some instances, the present application 200 allows the senders to provide the unique identification information of the receiver selected from a group consisting of a national ID, a government identifier information, an employment ID, a personal banking related information, an educational ID or any other kind of identification information unique to the receiver. The unique identification information of the receiver thus provided by the sender through the interactive graphical user interface of the application 200 is encrypted and stored in the block(s) of the blockchain 130 and is utilized in form of a personal identity verifier of the receiver during the instant cash transaction. Further, the present application 200 automatically verifies the email address of the receiver, provided by the sender prior to making the transaction, and sends the unique PIN generated by the application 200 for the particular transaction via the email. The application also generates a unique code corresponding to the unique PIN generated by the application 200 for the particular transaction and shared with the receiver via the email and includes the code in the transaction information, which is encrypted and later stored in the block(s) of the blockchain 130. The blockchain 130 with the block(s) containing the transaction information is then shared with the distributed blockchain network 106 having multiple computing nodes, each computing node storing a copy or at least a portion thereof of the blockchain 130 containing the transaction information, as in block 406. The block(s) containing the transaction information is shared with the distributed blockchain network 106 through the secure wireless communication channel or the network 104 enabling communication between the electronic communication device 102 and the computing nodes of the distributed blockchain network 106. In some instances, the electronic communication device 102 of the sender and the electronic computing device 108 of the authorized financial service provider 110 forms two computing nodes of the distributed blockchain network 106.
[0043]
[0044]
[0045] Further, it should be noted that the steps described in the method of use could be carried out in many different orders according to user preference. The use of step of should not be interpreted as step for, in the claims herein and is not intended to invoke the provisions of 35 U.S.C. 112, (6). Upon reading this specification, it should be appreciated that, under appropriate circumstances, considering such issues as design preference, user preferences, marketing preferences, cost, technological advances, etc., other methods of use arrangements, elimination or addition of certain steps, including or excluding certain maintenance steps, etc., may be sufficient.
[0046] The foregoing description of the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been presented for the purpose of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings. It is intended that the scope of the present invention not be limited by this detailed description, but by the claims and the equivalents to the claims appended hereto.