US Patent 7657484 Electronic bill presentment via a wide area communications network

Bill information is electronically presented to a user via a wide-area communications network. The wide-area communications network has multiple different network sites, including a first network site associated with a first bill information presentment entity, a second network site associated with a first user entity, and a third network site associated with a second bill information presentment entity. First information for authenticating the first user entity is received by the first bill information presentment entity. The first user entity is authenticated to the third network site based on this received first authentication information. First bill information, which represents a first bill of a first biller for the first user entity, is accessed at the third network site based on the authentication of the first user entity to this site. The accessed first bill information is transmitted from the first network site to the second network site, for presentation to the first user entity.