DIRECT ELECTRONIC BILL PAYMENT WITH REAL-TIME FUNDS AVAILABILITY

A method including receiving, at a payment-messaging system from a biller financial institution, a request comprising a public consumer token of a consumer. The consumer provided the public consumer token to a biller system of a biller for a bill payment by the consumer to the biller. The biller system provided the public consumer token to the biller financial institution. The biller financial institution maintains a biller account of the biller. The acts also can include determining a risk metric representing a risk of using the public consumer token for the bill payment. The acts additionally can include sending the risk metric from the payment-messaging system to the biller financial institution. The biller financial institution sends the risk metric to the biller system to allow the biller to determine whether to assume liability for the bill payment. The acts further can include receiving, at the payment-messaging system from the biller financial institution, an authorization message for the bill payment. The authorization message was provided to the biller financial institution by the biller system. The acts additionally can include sending the authorization message for the bill payment to a consumer financial institution, to cause the consumer financial institution to send a real-time payment message through the payment-messaging system to the biller financial institution to make funds available in real-time in the biller account for the bill payment. Other embodiments are described.