Patent ID: 8326758

Claim:
A point of sale (POS) device for conducting a sales transaction, the POS device comprising: a proxy card reader that reads a customer's proxy card when it is readably coupled to the proxy card reader to retrieve proxy card account information there from; a user interface to receive, at a time of a transaction, customer input specifying a plurality of target monetary sources to use in conducting the transaction; a multiple-monetary-sources module (MMS) to interact with the plurality of target monetary sources specified by the customer at the time of the transaction in a direct mode, and with a multi-source processing system (MSPS) in an indirect mode; the POS device conducting a sales transaction for the customer based upon the proxy card account information in the indirect mode by: transmitting a transaction request that includes a transaction total to a multi-source processing system via a communication network; and receiving a proxy approval from the multi-source processing system, the proxy approval representing a plurality of approvals corresponding to differing monetary sources with a sum value of the transaction total; and the POS device conducting a sales transaction for the customer based upon the proxy card account information in the direct mode by: transmitting, from the POS device, a separate sub-transaction request corresponding to a separate part of the sales transaction to each of the plurality of target monetary sources via the communication network; and receiving, at the POS device, of separate approvals from each of the plurality of target monetary sources via the communication network, each separate approval corresponds to a separate sub-transaction.