Patent ID: 8571989

Claim:
A decoding system, comprising: a decoding engine running on a mobile device, the decoding engine in operation decoding signals produced from a read of a buyer's financial transaction card, the decoding engine in operation accepting and initializing incoming signals from the read of the buyer's financial transaction card until the signals reach a steady state, detecting the read of the buyer's financial transaction card once the incoming signals are in the steady state, identifying peaks in the incoming signals and digitizing identified peaks in the incoming signals into bits; a transaction engine running on the mobile device and coupled to the decoding engine, the transaction engine in operation receiving as its input decoded buyer's financial transaction card information from the decoding engine and serving as an intermediary between a buyer and a merchant, so that the buyer does not have to share his/her financial transaction card information with the merchant, wherein the decoding system is configured to be coupled to a social network; and the transaction configured to be coupled to a payment system with the payment system able to create open tabs for one or more transactions between first parties and second parties.