Patent ID: 8924260

Claim:
A method of processing a transaction at a point-of-sale (POS) terminal, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, by the POS terminal, a stream of data from a credential reader; recognizing, by the POS terminal, a first data sequence in the received data stream; in response to the recognized first data sequence, handling, by the POS terminal, transaction data coming in sequence after the first data sequence according to a data-processing protocol stored on the POS terminal; recognizing, by the POS terminal, a second data sequence in the received data stream; in response to the recognized second data sequence, terminating, by the POS terminal, data handling according to the data-processing protocol; and completing, by the POS terminal, a transaction based on the transaction data, wherein the data-processing protocol comprises, by the POS terminal: interrupting execution of a current task; and combining the transaction data with item-purchase data received at the POS terminal and transmitting the data to a transaction-processing server for approval.