Patent ID: 8332277

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at an associate processing device operated by an associate business entity, a request from an individual for payment of at least one product or service offered by a merchant; accessing, by the associate processing device, an account associated with the individual, wherein the account is configured to store data pertaining to a plurality of associate cards, and wherein the account comprises an account value provided by the associate business entity corresponding to an amount of associate card data that the individual has stored in the account; receiving, at the associate processing device, data that is provided by the individual and associated with an associate card, wherein the received data is used to identify a value of the associate card and to identify a distribution region for the associate card; recording, in the account by the associate processing device, the received data associated with the associate card; recording, by the associate processing device, the distribution region for the associate card according to the received associate card data; incrementing, by the associate processing device, the account value according to the received associate card data; and in response to the account value equaling a threshold value, enabling fulfillment of the request.