Patent Issued for Value metric and comparison interface for payment cards (USPTO 11907993): United Services Automobile Association

2024 MAR 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States) has been issued patent number 11907993, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Clark, Ryan (Saint Augustine, FL, US), Gregory, Christopher (Marietta, GA, US), Griffin, John (San Antonio, TX, US), Hicks, Elainie B. (Boerne, TX, US), Holstien, Sean (Irvine, CA, US), Joplin, Jarrod Lawrence (Austin, TX, US), Kelley, Audra (Austin, TX, US), Kelley, Christopher Patrick (Austin, TX, US), Mock, Trisha Suzanne (Austin, TX, US), Stevens, Carly Jean (Austin, TX, US), Williams, Cornelius (San Antonio, TX, US), Zaharia, Daniel Ronald (Austin, TX, US).

This patent was filed on August 20, 2019 and was published online on February 20, 2024.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Payment cards such as credit cards and debit cards are ubiquitous in a modern economy. Individuals may use a payment card to make purchases from traditional brick-and-mortar merchants and also to conduct transactions online through e-commerce web sites or other services. Given the large number of cards that may be available, an individual or other entity may have difficulty determining the particular card that is appropriate for their purchasing needs and overall financial situation.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Implementations of the present disclosure are generally directed to account management. More specifically, implementations are directed to determining value metrics for multiple payments cards, based on user-indicated expected use of the card and other information, recommending one or more cards for an individual, and presenting the recommendations through a user interface such that the recommendations are displayed (e.g., follow the individual) as the individual views multiple pages in the user interface such as a web application, mobile application, and so forth.

“In general, innovative aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include operations of: receiving user data associated with a user accessing an application executing on a user device; calculating a value metric for each of a plurality of payment cards, the respective value metric of a payment card indicating an estimated value of using the respective payment card, the respective value metric based at least partly on the user data and one or more characteristics of the respective payment card; ranking the plurality of payment cards according to their respective value metrics and, based at least partly on the ranking, designating at least one recommended payment card that is highest ranked among the plurality of payment cards; and presenting recommendation data indicating the at least one recommended payment card to the user on multiple screens of the application.

“Implementations can optionally include one or more of the following features: the user data includes a credit score of the user, an estimate of expenditures to be made by the user through use of the payment card during a time period, and an estimate of a payoff amount to be paid on the payment card during the time period; one or more of the credit score, the estimate of expenditures, and the estimate of the payoff are provided by the user through the application; the credit score is retrieved from an external service; the one or more characteristics of the respective payment card include one or more of a reward earned through use of the respective payment card, an interest rate of the respective payment card, and a fee charged for use of the respective payment card; the operations further include presenting card data for each of the plurality of payment cards in the multiple screens of the application; presenting the recommendation data includes presenting a recommendation indicator with the respective card data of each recommended payment card; the respective card data for each of the plurality of payment cards includes the respective value metric calculated for the respective payment card; presenting the recommendation data further includes presenting, in at least one screen of the application, a comparison of the one or more characteristics of the at least one recommended payment card to the one or more characteristics of at least one other payment card; the operations further include receiving, through the application, an indication of the at least one other payment card to be compared to the at least one recommended payment card; and/or the presented comparison further includes the value metric of the at least one recommended payment card and the value metric of the at least one other payment card.

“Other implementations of any of the above aspects include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer programs that are configured to perform the actions of the methods, encoded on computer storage devices. The present disclosure also provides a computer-readable storage medium coupled to one or more processors and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein. The present disclosure further provides a system for implementing the methods provided herein. The system includes one or more processors, and a computer-readable storage medium coupled to the one or more processors having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein.

“Implementations of the present disclosure provide one or more of the following technical advantages and/or technical improvements over previously available solutions. Implementations provide an efficient way to view data regarding different payment cards, and determine card recommendations for a user based on quantified information regarding the user’s expected use of the card, the user’s credit score, and the characteristics of the card (e.g., interest rate, rewards, fees, etc.). Through use of such information, implementations develop useful recommendations to help efficiently determine a suitable payment card. Previously available solutions lack an integrated recommendation service that is based on such quantified information, and accordingly user’s employing previously available solutions may spend more time determining an appropriate card, and/or more frequently perform erroneous and/or later-backed-out requests. Accordingly, previously available solutions tend to expend more processing power, storage space, active memory, network bandwidth, and/or other computing resources compared to a system according to the implementations described herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method performed by at least one processor, the method comprising: receiving, by the at least one processor, user data associated with a user accessing an application executing on a user device; calculating, by the at least one processor, a value metric for each of a plurality of payment cards, each respective value metric of a payment card indicating an estimated value of using a respective payment card of the plurality of payment cards, the respective value metric based at least partly on the user data and one or more characteristics of the respective payment card; ranking, by the at least one processor, the plurality of payment cards according to their respective value metrics and, based at least partly on the ranking, designating at least one recommended payment card that is highest ranked among the plurality of payment cards; and presenting, by the at least one processor and in multiple sections of the application, the plurality of payment cards and recommendation data indicating the at least one recommended payment card to the user, wherein the presentation of the plurality of payment cards includes at least one control to remove a particular payment card from the plurality of payment cards, and wherein the recommendation data is preserved through one or more application logout events.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user data includes: a credit score of the user; an estimate of expenditures to be made by the user through use of the payment card during a time period; and an estimate of a payoff amount to be paid on the payment card during the time period.

“3. The method of claim 2, wherein one or more of the credit score, the estimate of expenditures, and the estimate of the payoff are provided by the user through the application.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more characteristics of the respective payment card include one or more of: a reward earned through use of the respective payment card; an interest rate of the respective payment card; and a fee charged for use of the respective payment card.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: presenting, by the at least one processor, card data for each of the plurality of payment cards in the multiple sections of the application, wherein presenting the recommendation data includes presenting a recommendation indicator with respective card data of each recommended payment card.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the recommendation data further includes presenting, in at least one screen of the application, a comparison of the one or more characteristics of the at least one recommended payment card to the one or more characteristics of at least one other payment card.

“7. The method of claim 6, further comprising: receiving, by the at least one processor, through the application, an indication of the at least one other payment card to be compared to the at least one recommended payment card.

“8. The method of claim 6, wherein the presented comparison further includes the value metric of the at least one recommended payment card and the value metric of the at least one other payment card.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein the recommendation data persists across multiple different sessions of the application, each session being separated by a logout event, such that recommendations follow the user’s navigation through multiple screens of the application over multiple sessions.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the value metric for each of the plurality of payment cards comprises, for each value metric, evaluating expected usage of the payment card by the user among multiple expense categories, values of one or more rewards expected to be earned through the expected usage of the payment card, an expected balance to be carried on the payment card, an interest rate of the card, and fees for the payment card.

“11. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the recommendation data in multiple sections of the application comprises presenting the recommendation data in combination with different browsing data present in each section of the application.

“12. The method of claim 1, wherein presentation of the recommendation data further comprises presenting one or more hyperlinks to resources describing the respective value metrics included in the recommendation data.

“13. The method of claim 1, wherein presentation of the plurality of payment cards further comprises a carousel control that permits a user to cycle between displays of individual payment cards while giving the perception of a rotating display.

“14. A system comprising: at least one processor; and memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, the memory storing instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: receiving user data associated with a user accessing an application executing on a user device; calculating a value metric for each of a plurality of payment cards, each respective value metric of a payment card indicating an estimated value of using a respective payment card of the plurality of payment cards, the respective value metric based at least partly on the user data and one or more characteristics of the respective payment card; ranking the plurality of payment cards according to their respective value metrics and, based at least partly on the ranking, designating at least one recommended payment card that is highest ranked among the plurality of payment cards; and presenting the plurality of payment cards and recommendation data indicating the at least one recommended payment card to the user in multiple sections of the application; wherein the presentation of the plurality of payment cards includes at least one control to remove a particular payment card from the plurality of payment cards, and wherein the recommendation data is preserved through one or more application logout events.

“15. The system of claim 14, wherein the user data includes: a credit score of the user; an estimate of expenditures to be made by the user through use of the payment card during a time period; and an estimate of a payoff amount to be paid on the payment card during the time period.

“16. The system of claim 15, wherein one or more of the credit score, the estimate of expenditures, and the estimate of the payoff are provided by the user through the application.

“17. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more characteristics of the respective payment card include one or more of: a reward earned through use of the respective payment card; an interest rate of the respective payment card; and a fee charged for use of the respective payment card.

“18. The system of claim 14, the operations further comprising: presenting card data for each of the plurality of payment cards in the multiple sections of the application, wherein presenting the recommendation data includes presenting a recommendation indicator with respective card data of each recommended payment card.

“19. The system of claim 14, wherein presenting the recommendation data further includes presenting, in at least one screen of the application, a comparison of the one or more characteristics of the at least one recommended payment card to the one or more characteristics of at least one other payment card.

“20. The system of claim 19, wherein the presented comparison further includes the value metric of the at least one recommended payment card and the value metric of the at least one other payment card.

“21. One or more computer-readable storage media storing instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: receiving user data associated with a user accessing an application executing on a user device; calculating a value metric for each of a plurality of payment cards, each respective value metric of a payment card indicating an estimated value of using a respective payment card of the plurality of payment cards, the respective value metric based at least partly on the user data and one or more characteristics of the respective payment card; ranking the plurality of payment cards according to their respective value metrics and, based at least partly on the ranking, designating at least one recommended payment card that is highest ranked among the plurality of payment cards; and presenting the plurality of payment cards and recommendation data indicating the at least one recommended payment card to the user in multiple sections of the application; wherein the presentation of the plurality of payment cards includes at least one control to remove a particular payment card from the plurality of payment cards, and wherein the recommendation data is preserved through one or more application logout events.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Clark, Ryan. Value metric and comparison interface for payment cards. U.S. Patent Number 11907993, filed August 20, 2019, and published online on February 20, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11907993)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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