TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a system and a method for making financial transactions with a computing device. Specifically, it relates to a system and method for classifying and ranking financial transactions according to any factor with negative effects.

BACKGROUND ART

Many financial systems or institutions such as bank and shops are nowadays using the Internet to reach users all over the world. These users need normally a computing device and an account from the financial system in order to manage their account from a remote distance. The computing device may be a mobile device as a cellular that has access to the Internet via a server.

In order to fulfil the users' need, the financial systems have modified their web sites in complexity and size to be adapted to a mobile device. In addition, a series of mobile applications from these financial systems have been released.

Each user may also obtain a credit or debit card to make financial transactions over the internet or in a shop. Each credit/debit card is linked to a user account which keeps track of the available money to spend. In the event, all the available money is spent over one or several financial transactions, the account does no longer allow the user to withdraw any money or to make any further financial transactions and the account is then blocked.

The above mentioned system is only considering the financial state of the user, i.e. the available money in the account, and does not consider any other issues or factors that may be of importance to a user as well. SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

The problem of only considering available funds when making a financial transaction makes a user unaware of how damaging the financial transaction may be in relation to different aspects that may be of importance to the user. Some of these aspects may be related to environmental factors, fare trade factors, dangerous factors, etc.

Furthermore, there is a lack of ability for a user to not be able to match financial transactions to an index determining his/her footprint. Firstly, it requires a huge amount of information and complex computing to create an index to a specific type of transaction. Secondly, it requires to continually keep track of all the transactions in order to arrive at a final value that will notify the user about his/her good or bad financial choices.

Accordingly, there is provided a method, system and a mobile device that each considers all the above mentioned aspects, specifically the environmental factor.

Accordingly, there is provided a method for determining an environmental footprint of a computing device user comprising the steps of receiving a first data related to a financial transaction by a computing device from a server, said server being in communication with a bank, storing the first data in a storage on the computing device, receiving a second data by the computing device from the server related to an index table indicating a relationship between environmental indices and first data, storing the second data in the storage of the computing device, determining an environmental index of the first data by means of the second data, repeating the previous steps for each received first data and determining an accumulating value of all previous determined environmental indices during a specified period of time, comparing the accumulating value with a predetermined threshold value, sending at least one message to the graphic user interface GUI of the computing device, in the event the accumulating value exceeds the threshold value, displaying on the graphic user interface, GUI, of the computing device the environmental index for each first data together with the accumulating value.

The advantage of accumulating the environmental values for every transaction is that the user is continuously capable of taking control and be responsible of the type of transactions he or she is making in relation to environmental footprint. In the event, the accumulating value exceeds the threshold value indicated by a governmental institution or any source, the user by receiving a message will be able to stop further transactions if desired or only focus on future purchases that are least damaging the environment.

Further, the method may, upon the step of sending a message to the computing device, send a further message to the server comprising instructions of blocking further financial transactions so that the computing device is no longer capable of receiving first data related to a transaction from the server.

This is a more severe way of stopping the transactions of the user despite available funds in the account. This feature will help many companies that are working for the environment to promote the importance of taking care of our environment by for instance offering employees these type of cards for free. It will also be of use for plenty of people that need rigorous limits in order to achieve environmental goals in their lives.

Further, the method may further comprise the step of enabling the server to perform transactions to a third party upon the step of sending the message.

One of the advantages of enabling the server to perform transactions to a third party is to provide the user to invest in projects or funds that are pro-environmental. This may specially happen when a user has spent money in indirectly damaging the environment by making purchases that are produced, by e.g. emitting large quantities of carbon emission.

Another advantage is that this feature allows a user to use a third party for e.g. making a transaction from another financial provider when the first financial provider is blocked.

Further, the first data and/or the second data may be alternatively stored in the cloud.

It is advantageous to have data on the cloud since the storage in computing devices, such as mobile devices, is limited. If the cloud is alternatively connected to the server, the data will be stored in the cloud when there is lack of memory in the mobile device so the method is performed as normal.

There is also provided a system for determining an environmental footprint of a user comprising a server providing communication between a bank and a computing device, the computing device comprising a processor, a storage and graphic user interface, GUI, and capable of receiving from the server a first data related to a transaction and a second data related to an index table indicating a relationship between environmental indices and first data, the processor is adapted to perform the steps of storing the first and second data in the storage, determining an environmental index of the stored first data by means of the stored second data, repeating the previous steps for each received first data and determining an accumulating value of all previous determined environmental indices during a specified period of time, comparing the accumulating value with a predetermined threshold value, and sending the environmental index for each first data together with the accumulating value to the GUI and sending a message in the event the accumulating value exceeds the predetermined threshold value.

Further, the processor may be adapted to send a further message sending instructions to the server to block further financial instructions if the accumulating value is greater than or equal to the predetermined value.

Further, the processor may be further adapted to enable the server to perform transactions to a third party upon performing the step of sending the message.

Further, the first data and/or the second data may be alternatively stored in the cloud.

There is also provided a mobile device indicating a relationship between environmental indices and first data application adapted to perform the method steps.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS In the following, the disclosure will be described in further detail with references to the exemplary apparatus, method and systems in the drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 shows a flowchart of an exemplary method according to the present disclosure.

Fig. 2. shows a flowchart of another exemplary method according to the present disclosure.

Fig. 3 shows an exemplary system according to the present disclosure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The method, system and mobile device will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which various examples are shown. The accompanying drawings are schematic and simplified for clarity and they merely show details, which are essential to the understanding of the invention, while other details have been left out. The appended patent claims may be embodied in different forms not shown in the accompanying drawings and should not be construed as limited to the examples set forth herein. Rather, these examples are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the appended patent claims to those skilled in the art.

The method disclosed herein may be used for different aspects. Some of these aspects may be environmental factors, fare trade factors, unhealthy factors, etc.

Unhealthy factors such as damaging products for the health including tobacco and alcohol are normally considered of importance for a normal user. If these products are ranked as how unhealthy they are for a user in an index table, the user will easily be able to detect how unhealthy he or she has being during a specified period of time.

The disclosure may similarly consider fare trade factors which involve products that are marked as Fare Trade which certifies, in general terms, that workers have been working in good conditions whilst producing the products. If a user buys products that do not have these certifications, the user will then obtain an index value which is dependent of how serious it may be to ignore the certification. For instance, a diamond may be a product that is developed in bad working conditions for the workers and its index value may therefore be very high in relation to other products. These index values are then accumulated over a specified time until a predetermined threshold is reached.

Specifically, this disclosure is mainly focusing on determining an environmental footprint of a computing device user. The environmental footprint may be carbon emission or other factor damaging the environment. The computing device user may be a user having a PC or a mobile device connected to the Internet and generally comprising at least a processor, a storage medium and a display. The computing device has also a connection either directly to a financial system such as a bank or via a shop to the bank. The user may also have an account in the financial system either directly or indirectly via the shop. In addition, the user may also have a debit or credit card associated with the bank- or shop account enabling the user to use his or her available money to make purchases creating financial transactions in the system. These purchases may not be beneficial for the environment but until this disclosure there is no system that allows a user to know whether their financial transactions are in line with the environmental targets from individuals set by many institutions, such as UN. The user has a need to connect his/her consumption to the impact it has on the planet. This could cover many aspects of the environment, such as the use of plastic, the carbon emissions, the use of tree-derived products, etc.

By using this method, a user may make daily purchases with the credit/debit card and track his/her environmental footprint associated with their spending via a mobile application in a mobile device or via a PC.

The flow chart of Fig.l shows the claimed method according to the present disclosure comprising the step SI of receiving a first data and a second data by a computing device from a server. The first data is related to a financial transaction and the second data is related to an index table indicating a relationship between environmental indices and the first data. The server forwards the first data and the second data from the bank to the computing device via the server, which is wireless connected to the bank and to the computing device.

The method receives by the computing device the first data which contains all the information related to a financial transaction plus further information needed for processing the information in the processor of the computing device. This further information may be in the form of a header or extra data bits within the first data.

In addition, the method receives a second data by the computing device from the server. This relationship is thoroughly calculated and takes in consideration a huge amount of information from different databases and facts in order to arrive to the final environmental index associated to a specific transaction. The second data may not necessarily come from the bank but from another storage medium placed in the server such as a cloud storage. The second data may be public or private, i.e. calculated by the manager of the system or any other third party.

An example of a second data could be the relationship between the purchase of a running shoe and the impact of the running shoe on the environment, specifically regarding the carbon emissions. This relationship could be written in the form of an index table where, at one side of the table, different types of transactions are specified and on the other side of the table, environmental indices are specified, e.g. carbon (CO2) emission values, each corresponding to each type of transaction. The carbon emission values may be indicated in the unity of KgCC>2.

An example of such an index table is a table comprising conversion factors calculating the CO2 impact of every credit card transaction. These conversion factors of the index table could originate from a variety of sources including total CO2 Emissions (in tonnes), total revenues of company data and/or industry data from previous years and social costs of carbon. In other words, there is a huge amount of information to compile and process in order to obtain the right environmental index for each specified transaction.

In step S2, the first and second data is stored in the storage of the computing device of the user alternatively the data is stored in the cloud. The storage may be a storage device in the computing device such as RAM, ROM and any volatile memory or a cloud storage accessible from a web page or server.

The method further determines in step S3 an environmental index of the first data by means of the second data. This means that an index table is obtained from the second data and applied on the first data where the type of transaction is indicated. By doing this, an environmental index is determined according to the type of transaction.

As an example, a carbon emission value can be obtained from the second data and applied to the purchase of the running shoe. The value is calculated to be 3.7 KgCo2 and would represent the environmental index corresponding to the purchase of the running shoe.

Thus, for every transaction or received first data, an environmental index is determined in step S3 and summed up to an accumulating value during a specified period of time t = [0...T] This period of time T may be a year, a month or a week and it can be customized accordingly. This accumulating value will represent the environmental footprint of the user for the specified period of time T.

These steps S1-S3 are repeated for each received first data, i.e. for all the transactions performed by the user by the credit/debit card and accepted by the bank via the server during the time T. As previously mentioned, there are several worldwide or local organisations that have been involved in calculating the maximum value of for instance CO2 emission that a person is limited to produce or allow to produce per year. This maximum value is hereby considered as a threshold value for the accumulating value calculated in the previous step S3. The threshold value may also be customised or specified by other sources.

The next step S4 is to compare the accumulating value with the threshold value in order to determine whether at least one message will be sent in step S5. If the accumulating value exceeds the threshold value, then in step S5 a message is sent to the graphic user interface, GUI, of the computing device to notify the user that the limit of producing for instance carbon emission is now reached and if further purchases are made, the limit will be surpassed. The last step S6 performed by the claimed method is to display device the environmental index on the GUI of the computing for each first data or financial transaction together with the total accumulating value. The results will be displayed in a simple and educative way on the GUI so the user can easily determine which purchases have more impact on the environment and should therefore be avoided. This does not necessarily means that the user or consumer will spend less money or similar but he or she will spend it wisely and in line with the requirements that worldwide institutions are set for each individual in view of the environment.

Fig. 2 shows another example of the method according to the present disclosure. In this case, steps SI to S5 are similar to those in Fig. 1. However, in the following step S6, a further message is sent to the server comprising instructions of blocking further financial transactions so that the computing device is no longer capable of receiving first data related to a transaction from the server/bank. The blocking instructions are the results of a carbon limit that is reached when the carbon emission of the user is higher or equivalent to a predetermined threshold level. Once the blocking instructions are sent to the bank via the server, the user will no longer be able to use his/her credit or debit card during the time T. The time cycle is restarted after the time T which may be a year or any other customized time.

Optionally, the method may further comprise a step of enabling the server to perform transactions to a third party upon the step of sending the message in step S5 in Fig. 1 or S6 in Fig 2. The third party may be a financial or governmental institution. The user may obtain the possibility to compensate for the carbon emission for his/her consumptions by performing transactions to a governmental institution. These transactions may be investments in projects that fulfil the criterion for United Nations certified green projects. These projects may be any type of product that will encourage wind power, improved waste management and any project that contributes to a global emission reduction.

As an alternative, the third party may also be a financial institution. This happens only in case the blocking action is activated, the user has a second chance to consult another bank or any other financial institution to make an emergency transaction. However, at the end of the day, the user determines whether a financial transaction is an emergency or not. All these features are customised according to the user preferences.

In Fig. 3, a system is shown for determining an environmental footprint of a user. The system comprises a server 301 providing communication between a bank or financial institution 303 and a computing device 302. The computing device 302 comprises a processor 306, a storage 305 and graphic user interface, GUI on a display 304. The computing device is capable of receiving from the server a first data related to a transaction and a second data related to an index table indicating a relationship between environmental indices and first data. The processor is adapted to perform the steps of storing the first and second data in the storage, determining an environmental index of the stored first data by means of the stored second data, repeating the previous steps for each received first data and determining an accumulating value of all previous determined environmental indices during a specified period of time, comparing the accumulating value with a predetermined threshold value, and sending the environmental index for each first data together with the accumulating value to the GUI and sending a message in the event the accumulating value exceeds the predetermined threshold value.

The processor in the computing device may be adapted to send a further message sending instructions to the server to block further financial instructions if the accumulating value is greater than or equal to the predetermined value. Similarly to the method, the processor may also be adapted to enable the server to perform transactions to a third party upon performing the step of sending the message.

By way of example, the storage device 305 may be disk drives, optical storage devices, solid- state devices such as a random access memory ("RAM") and/or a read-only memory ("ROM"), which can be programmable, flash-updatable and/ or the like. However, as an alternative, the first data and/or the second data may be stored in the cloud or server 301.

As seen in Fig. 3, the computing device may be a PC or a mobile device 302. The mobile device 302 comprises mobile applications that may be run on the processor 306 of the device 302. The method according to the present disclosure may be performed by a mobile application adapted to the mobile device 302 indicating a relationship between environmental indices and first data, i.e. financial transactions.

The term "user" and "consumer" is used for the sake of simplicity and refers to any person having access to the computing device in the form of a PC, a mobile device, or any other suitable devices.

Whilst the invention has been described with respect to illustrative embodiments thereof, it will be understood that various changes may be made in the apparatus and means herein described without departing from the scope and the teaching of the invention. Accordingly, the described embodiments are to be considered merely exemplary and the invention or disclosure is not to be limited except as specified in the attached claims.