Intuit Inc., one of the American’s most innovative fintech – audit companies, has been awarded a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a new, bitcoin payment processing platform.
Intuit is based in Mountain View, California and currently has a headcount of around 8,000 people. With subsidiaries that include Mint.com and PayCycle, Intuit primarily develops financial and business software for small and medium-sized companies, accountants, etc.
According to their patent, the system will allow Intuit’s users to exchange bitcoin through a simple text message. This is basically the innovation that Intuit won this patent for, since up until now, there have been numerous ways to buy and sell Bitcoin, but exchange was never done through a text message.
There are several aspects to the innovative system that Intuit has created. First, the payment requests will be validated through different methods: either through a regular password confirmation code, which is usually used for payments through all major banks, or through a special voicemail system.
Part of the patent’s description reads:
“….invention relates to a system for processing payment. The system includes a payer mobile device of a payer, wherein the payer mobile device is configured to send to a payment text message to a payment service, wherein the payment text message comprises a payment amount and an identifier of a payee mobile device of a payee…”
It is really interesting to note the growing interest from companies that mainly provide audit-related services to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. For example, the Big Four are currently researching and developing their own blockchain tools that can help them garnish more market share and cater to new type of customers. While not many are directly related to Bitcoin or any other alt coin, the growing significance and popularity of blockchain is palpable among audit companies, especially the ones in the US.