There are many occasions where a user may want to receive messages from merchants, banks, and other such entities. For example, a user may want to be notified when his or her checking account drops below a threshold amount or when his or her credit-card account is approaching its credit limit. Also, for example, a user may want to receive promotional offers, coupons, communications regarding affinity programs, and other marketing messages from certain merchants.
These types of messages may be sent to the user's mobile phone. However, such messages may be sent to the user's mobile phone at any time, in no particular order, and without regard to the type and/or priority of the messages. Accordingly, the messages may potentially clutter the user's mobile phone with messages the user may not be interested in receiving at that time. For example, on any given day, the user may receive dozens of marketing messages but only one or two important account-related messages. In this case, there is some risk the user may overlook the one or two important account-related messages because those important messages may be buried among dozens of marketing messages.
Further, because these messages may be sent to the user without regard to time, the messages may be sent at times when the user may not be receptive to receiving such messages. For example, if marketing messages are sent midday when the user is busy working, the user may be less likely to review the contents of the message. What's more, because the security of the channels through which these messages are sent may not be sufficiently robust, the content of account-related messages may have to be generalized so as to not include important details. In this case, upon receiving an account-related message, a user may have to take further action, such as accessing his or her online banking account, to obtain further details. Also, to the extent sensitive information is included in these messages, there may be a risk of unintended third parties obtaining access to the information.
It would be desirable to improve upon existing messaging systems to make the content and delivery parameters of messages more customized to individual users' preferences as well as to make transmission of such messages more secure.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems, individually and collectively.