Information consolidation within a transaction network

Claim 1

A stored value transaction system for exchanging cash-equivalent value among a plurality of system users and a plurality of system entities wherein each user has a cash-eqivalent module including a first memory for storing an amount of cash-equivalent value, the system comprising: a plurality of value transferring devices including a value adding device for adding cash-equivalent value to the cash-equivalent module of a user in exchange for a corresponding amount of value provided by the user to a system entity and a value deducting device for deducting cash-equivalent value from the cash-equivalent module of a user in exchange for a corresponding amount of value provided to the user from a system entity, each value transferring device including a second memory for storing value transfer information corresponding to each transfer; a first collection device for periodically receiving an accumulated amount of the stored value transfer information from the second memory of at least one of the value transferring devices, the first collection device including a third memory for storing the received accumulated value transfer information; a first consolidation device for receiving the stored value transfer information from the third memory of the first collection device, the first consolidation device including a fourth memory for storing the received value transfer information and a processor for consolidating the received value transfer information into consolidated information according to a plurality of entities, the entities including entities that are to receive deducted cash-equivalent value and entities that are to provide added cash-equivalent value; a first network settlement device coupled to the first consolidation device for receiving the consolidated information from the first consolidation device and for performing settlement among the system entities according to the received consolidated information.