Payment system

摘要

A method of transferring funds electronically between financial institutions in response to a transaction between a merchant and customer is disclosed. The method comprises receiving at a computer system a transaction message indicating a transaction amount and containing information for identifying the payer's and payee's financial institutions and arranging transfer of the transaction amount from the payer's financial institution to the payee's institution using the computer system. The transaction message comprises a header and message portion. The message portion has data fields with encrypted content for security and the header is unencrypted to facilitate routing of the transaction message.