| 摘要 |
A self-service terminal (114a,b) for dispensing electronic vouchers (52 , Fig 2) for storing in a portable terminal (118) is described. The voucher (52) comprises a description (62, Fig 3) of the voucher in a natural language, such as English; and a destription (64, Fig 3) of the voucher in an artificial language, such as a numeric representation of a barcode, so that the voucher (52) is readable by a human and also by an electronic device. The SST has a wireless port such as ir to download the electronic coupons to the portable terminal (118) which is preferably in the form of a PDA. Preferably, the PDA has a CPU (212) with a non volatile memory (216), a simple operating system (226) and a voucher management program (228). The portable terminal can also be a cellular telephone and/or receive electronic money from a SST in the form of an ATM to allow it to be used for payment also. Vouchers can be automatically downloaded to the PDA when the user requests other information such as a bank statement. In an further embodiment, the portable terminal is in the form of a Smart device (18, Fig 1) such as a card. The SST's maybe connected via the internet such that the vouchers can be downloaded via a web browser (Fig 4) enabling control of the numbers of vouchers issued (Fig 5). |
