Conducting monetary transactions with minimal coin transfer

Abstract

When a monetary transaction is made between a merchant and a customer, some or all of the change owed to the customer will be transferred to a data storage card carried by the customer. Instead of receiving the change in the form of coins, the customer instead would insert his/her data storage card into a Point-of-Sale (POS) terminal, and the change amount owed to the customer would be credited on the card (minus a service charge). The card can be repeatedly used at all participating merchants, so that credited change accumulates thereon, with a running credit balance being maintained on the card. Information pertaining to each transaction is automatically transferred from the POS terminal to a central data storage facility of the card issuer which maintains a record of the customer's credit balance. The customer can be reimbursed part or all of his/her balance (less a fee) in the form of cash, or the customer can use the card as a debit card. Funds are transferred from the participating merchants to the card issuer to be held as custodian for the customer until the customer withdraws, transfers or otherwise takes possession of the funds.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.