Point-of-sale and declining balance system, and method, having a relay server for facilitating communication between front-end devices and back-end account servers

摘要

A point-of-sale and declining balance (“POS/DB”) system, and method of facilitating transactions thereon, that utilizes a relay server to facilitate communication between front-end devices and back-end devices that use different data formats. The relay server acts as a translator between the front-end device and the back-end account servers. In one embodiment, a standardized data format for front-end device is introduced that, when coupled with the relay server, isolates the front-end devices from the complexities of various back-end account servers. In one aspect, the invention is the relay server itself.