9 software for performing financial transactions, namely, purchasing goods and services using credit cards, charge cards, debit cards, stored value cards and smart cards in conjunction with a point of sale terminal; software for providing access to a wide-area computer network by way of a server, software providing financial transaction applications in conjunction with a point of sale terminal or a computer in communication with a wide-area computer network, namely, security, operational control, transaction integrity, scalability, database access, auditing and reporting, exception handling, resource scheduling and allocation, logging of transaction data, and user access control