Aggregating a user's transactions across a plurality of service institutions
Methods and systems are provided for supporting electronic transactions, including transactions that are provided with per-user, per-device and per-domain security across domains of multiple service providers.
1. A method of collecting, reconciling and storing a single user's transactions across a plurality of service institutions without requiring the user to independently access each of the plurality of service institutions, comprising:
registering an electronic transaction device with a transaction service provider;
registering a plurality of accounts corresponding to a plurality of service institutions with the transaction service provider;
receiving from the electronic transaction device at the transaction service provider transaction data for at least one of a plurality of transactions conducted via the transaction device through the plurality of service institution accounts held by a user at a plurality of service institutions;
maintaining with the transaction service provider a client database that includes user confidential information, the received transaction data, and service institution account information for a plurality of users;
coupling a plurality of service institutions to the transaction service provider server over a network, the plurality of service institutions corresponding to at least the one of the plurality of service institution accounts held by a user, wherein service institution information is accessible by the transaction service provider server from a database that includes service or product information for at least a portion of the plurality of coupled service institutions;
retrieving over the network transaction data from each of the plurality of coupled service institutions for accounts held by the user at each coupled service institution; and
comparing the received transaction data from the plurality of service institutions with the received transaction data from the electronic transaction device stored in the client database.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the transactions is conducted via a conventional plastic card.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein a request to aggregate transaction data is received from the electronic transaction device.
4. The method of claim 1 , further including storing the received transaction data in a database of user information, wherein a first portion of the database of user information is designated as confidential and a second portion of the database of user information is designated as non-confidential.