In order to facilitate the taking into account of bonus points, it is recommended that the reader which effects a transaction with an integrated circuit card (1) sends an identity (Ii) to this card. This identity enables the card to recognise (12) with which type of service provider or vendor it is dealing, and to implement a set of rules (5, 11) specific to this service provider or vendor or, failing that, standard rules of the card issuer. These rules calculate bonuses specific to this supplier. These bonuses are totalled in a counter (10, 13) also specific to this supplier.

A system and method of obtaining information from a price look-up (PLU) file which employ an application programming interface which isolates application programs from each other. The system preferably includes a storage medium containing the PLU file, a computer coupled to the storage medium, control software executed by the computer, an application programming interface (API) having hooks into the control software, and a program executed by the computer which attaches into the API via interprocess communications for obtaining information for an item from the PLU file.

A method and system for providing an investment fund, such as a long term investment fund which may be suitable for retirement purposes, comprising the steps of establishing a credit based account with a credit card issuer for the benefit of a credit card holder, providing an investment account with a financial institution for the benefit of the credit card holder, funding the investment account by the credit card issuer with a predetermined amount of money on a periodic basis, and charging an amount of money so funded against the credit based account of the credit card holder. In addition, disclosed is a method and system providing an investment fund is based on purchase rebates, comprising the steps of establishing a credit based account with a credit card issuer for the benefit of a credit card holder, providing a long term investment account with a financial institution for the benefit of the credit card holder, ascertaining the total amount of money charged by the credit card holder in subscriber merchants in a particular period of time, and providing a rebate by the credit card issuer to the credit card holder by funding the investment account of the credit card holder with a predetermined percentage of said total amount so ascertained.

A method and a system for operating a revolving credit program utilizing a table of tiered interest rates in which one of the interest rates is applied as a finance charge to a remaining outstanding balance (20) of an account depending upon the percentage that payments made during a billing cycle (12) comprise of an account parameter, such as the outstanding balance, a highest balance or a beginning balance. In the preferred embodiment the applied interest rate (34) is determined by the percentage the outstanding balance (32) is reduced by payments on the balance during a billing cycle. Also in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the tiered interest rate table is structured to apply progressively reduced interest rates to outstanding balances reduced by progressively greater payment percentages from the previous billing cycle, thereby encouraging a credit customer to make larger payments and pay down the outstanding balance faster. Also in the preferred embodiment, the system calculates and displays (42) the minimum payments necessary to reduce the outstanding balance to meet each tier of the interest rate table.

A system and methods for automatically investing, a portion of interest charged amount paid by the card issuer or the cardholder, on a credit card account, to an individual retirement account, taxpayer relief act of 1997 IRA, "Roth Act" or "Super IRA", college education IRA or spousal IRA (herein, collectively, "IRA"), college savings account, 401(K) plan (with or without linkage to a company expense account credit card), dividend reinvestment program (in stock of the card issuing company or otherwise) or other investment feature.