WO2014086762A1

WO2014086762A1 - A method and system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services

Info

Publication number: WO2014086762A1
Application number: PCT/EP2013/075345
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ronald BEELEN; Giovanni VERBORG; Johan Maris; Dean TALBOYS
Original assignee: VITISCO NV
Current assignee: VITISCO NV
Priority date: 2012-12-03
Filing date: 2013-12-03
Publication date: 2014-06-12
Anticipated expiration: 2015-06-03

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a method - as well as a corresponding system - for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services comprising: - storing a plurality of service accounts, each corresponding to a customer and a service said customer is subscribed to, - receiving a request from a customer for using a service, - determining a service account upon identifying such customer and the requested service or its service provider, wherein identifying such customer comprises hashing any available identification instrument of a number of identification instruments linked to said customer's identification code, - consulting confidential service account content corresponding to said service account, said consulting comprising real-time communicating with said service provider, said service provider providing real-time access to said confidential service account content, wherein the method further comprises linking the steps of identifying a customer and the step of determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS)

Description

A METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO A SERVICE AMONGST A PLURALITY OF SERVICES.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method and system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Currently, customers collect a large number of loyalty cards, bank cards, credit cards, badges, and other identification instruments associated with all kinds of services they are subscribed to such as bank accounts, loyalty program accounts, etc. A known general problem is that it is difficult to maintain such large number of cards and either to continuously carry them all in a handbag or a wallet, either to make sure having the correct valid card available upon using a service or visiting a store or a bank. In an attempt to overcome the above problem, US 2010/0042517 describes a method for providing universal access to loyalty program accounts and/or financial accounts. Further, the patent application describes a uniform loyalty program account device to access a plurality of loyalty accounts and/or financial accounts. The device includes a storage mechanism configured to store account information for loyalty program accounts and/or financial accounts.

However, a disadvantage of the above method and device is that the collection of service accounts and corresponding account information is stored on a central server, which consequently implicates that the service provider has to share confidential service account content with the universal access system. Most service providers are not keen to do so for privacy and security reasons. Another disadvantage of the above method and device is that service account content has to be duplicated in the universal access system database from the service provider's database, which in fact means a waste of memory space. A further disadvantage is that, since duplication of the service account content is performed with a certain frequency, provisions have to be made to avoid situations wherein a customer intends to use a service of which the service account content is not yet up-to-date. Still another disadvantage of known methods and systems is that a dedicated universal identification instrument, e.g. a dedicated ID card, has to be released which the customer needs to have with him every time he wants to make use of a service.

Furthermore, another disadvantage of known methods is the need of changing the existing devices at the service provider's point-of-sale upon installing the systems of the state of the art.

Considering the above, as a first object the present invention provides a method and system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services, wherein confidential service account content does not need to be shared with the universal access system, resulting in less or even minimized privacy and security problems.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services, wherein service account content does not need to be duplicated such that memory space is saved .

Further it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services, having the ability to deliver the customer and the service provider up-to-date service account content. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and system where no additional dedicated universal identification instrument has to be released and where a customer is not dependent on carrying that dedicated universal identification instrument with him every time he wants to make use of a service.

An additional object of the present invention is to provide a method and system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services, allowing easy implementation of business intelligence applications. Furthermore, another object of the present invention is to provide a cost effective solution by using the existing devices, e.g. the ECR already present at the service provider's point-of-sale.

The present invention meets the above objects by consulting confidential service account content via real-time communication with the service provider, wherein the service provider provides real-time access to said confidential service account content.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to a method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services comprising:

- storing a plurality of service accounts, each corresponding to a customer and a service said customer is subscribed to,

- receiving a request from a customer for using a service,

- determining a service account upon identifying such customer and the requested service or its service provider, wherein identifying such customer comprises hashing any available identification instrument of a number of identification instruments linked to said customer's identification code,

- consulting confidential service account content corresponding to said service account, said consulting comprising real-time communicating with said service provider, said service provider providing real-time access to said confidential service account content, characterized in that the method further comprises linking the steps of identifying a customer and the step of determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS) Additionally the present invention is directed to a system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services comprising:

- a means for storing a plurality of service accounts, each corresponding to a customer and a service said customer is subscribed to,

- a determination means for determining a service account upon identification of such customer and the requested service or its service provider,

- an identification means for identifying said customer adapted for hashing any available identification instrument of a number of identification instruments linked to said customer's identification code,

- a consulting means for consulting confidential service account content corresponding to said service account, said consulting means adapted to communicate real-time with said service provider, said service provider providing real-time access to said confidential service account content. characterized in that the system further comprises means for connecting the identification means of a customer and the means for determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS)

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG 1 illustrates an embodiment of a method and system in accordance with the present invention.

FIG 2 illustrates another embodiment of a method and system in accordance with the present invention.

FIG 3 illustrated a multi-role loyalty program in accordance with the present invention. Fig 4 illustrates a lunch ticket payment program in accordance with the present invention.

Fig 5 illustrates a lunch ticket payment program in accordance with the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the context of the present invention, the service amongst a plurality of services may be any kind of service where customers may be subscribed to such as banking services, loyalty programs, warranty services, rental services, pre-payment services, coupon services, ticketing services, health care services, governmental services, etc.

Further in the context of the present invention, a customer is to be understood as not only an individual, but also as a group of people, such as a family, a club, a society, a company, etc. intending to make use of a service as described above.

Further, a service provider has to be understood as a supplier providing a service as described above and can be an online supplier or a conventional supplier.

In the context of the present invention, confidential service account content is to be understood as any content of a service account which may not be disclosed without authorization from the customer, the service provider, the government, etc. for reasons of privacy, security, or any other reason.

According to a first embodiment of the present invention, a method is proposed providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services comprising:

- receiving a request from a customer for using a service,

- determining a service account upon identifying such customer and the requested service or its service provider, wherein identifying such customer comprises hashing any available identification instrument of a number of identification instruments linked to said customer's identification code, - consulting confidential service account content corresponding to said service account, said consulting comprising real-time communicating with said service provider, said service provider providing real-time access to said confidential service account content, characterized in that the method further comprises linking the steps of identifying a customer and the step of determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS). In the context of the present invention, an ECR and/or POS is to be understood as any type of ECR and/or POS such as a physical electronic device or a virtual electronic device.

A first advantage of consulting the confidential service account content in real-time communication with the service provider, wherein the service provider allows realtime access to the confidential service account content, is that confidential service account content does not need to be shared with or stored in the service account database. Only information needed for identification of the customer and the requested service or its service provider, is stored in the service account database such that privacy and security problems may be decreased or even minimized.

Another advantage is that service account content does not need to be duplicated from the service provider's database such that memory space may be saved. A further advantage is that due to the real-time communication and real-time access, such method may have the ability to deliver the customer and the service provider up-to-date service account content.

Furthermore, another advantage is that a cost effective solution is providing by linking the steps of identifying a customer and the step of determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS), because the ECR already present at the service provider's point-of-sale needs not to be changed and can be used further. In an embodiment of the present invention, identification of the customer may comprise hashing a customer's identification code from any available identification instrument such as a chip card, a magnetic strip card, an RFID card, an RFID tag, a telephone, a mobile phone, a Bluetooth device, a barcode, a Media Access Control (MAC) address, and the like. Used hash algorithms may be any algorithm used in the state of the art for encryption of identification codes. The customer can register multiple identification instruments at any time and link them to the same identification code, that identification can be done by hashing any available identification instrument of a number of identification instruments linked to said customer's identification code.

The advantage of hashing a customer's identification code from any available identification instrument is that no additional dedicated universal identification instrument has to be released and that a customer is not dependent on carrying that dedicated universal identification instrument with him every time he wants to make use of a service. A customer may be able to identify himself by an identification instrument of his choice, since only one identification code, in combination with the requested service or its service provider, is required for determination of the service account. Further, by linking his identification code to a number of identification instruments of his choice, it is sufficient that the customer has only one of these instruments available at the moment he intends to use a service.

A method in accordance with the present invention may further comprise associating said confidential service account content with another service account of said customer, such as a financial account. For example, upon consulting confidential service account information, a customer's financial account may be debited or credited to a more or less extend depending on that information.

In an embodiment in accordance with the present invention, the method may further comprise transmitting new confidential service account content to said service provider. When using a service by a customer, new confidential service account content may be generated which may be transmitted to the corresponding service provider, preferably on a real-time basis. In another embodiment in accordance with the present invention, the method may further comprise checking said service account content and determining if the request from the customer for using a service is in accordance with available services. Preferably the check is done on a real-time basis.

In a further embodiment in accordance with the present invention, the customer can further receive a proof of the usage of the service from the service provider. Furthermore, said method can comprise said service provider communicating current status, and said service account content being updated accordingly. Preferably, the update is done on a real-time basis. This characteristic will allow the usage of a service only once, eliminating the situation in which the same service could be used with different service providers.

Additionally, in accordance with the present invention a system is proposed for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services comprising:

- a consulting means for consulting confidential service account content corresponding to said service account, said consulting means adapted to communicate real-time with said service provider, said service provider providing real-time access to said confidential service account content. characterized in that the system further comprises means for connecting the identification means of a customer and the means for determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale

A system in accordance with the present invention may comprise an identification means for identifying said customer. Such identification means may comprise any kind of tool to read a customer's identification code from any identification instrument such as a chip card, a magnetic strip card, an RFID card, an RFID tag, a telephone, a mobile phone, a Bluetooth device, a barcode, a MAC-address, and the like. In particular, such identification means may be a service provider terminal connected to the provider's point-of-sale (POS), a chip card reader, a magnetic stripe card reader, a bar code reader, a Bluetooth receiver, and the like.

The system according to the present invention can further comprise a controller module connecting the identification means to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service point-of-sale (POS) and to the means for storing a plurality of service accounts, and which additionally can be connected to a payment platform.

By using a controller module at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS) connecting the identification means to an electronic cash register (ECR) and to the means of storing a plurality of service accounts, the existing cash register devices at the provider's point-of-sale (POS) can be further used.

The means for storing a plurality of service accounts (also called the service account database) and the consulting means may be hosted on a server, a web server, or a server in the cloud.

The determination means may be hosted on the server, the web server, the server in the cloud, or partially on the server or web server or server in the cloud and partially on the POS.

Besides the general advantage that a method and system in accordance with the present invention do not require anymore a specific identification instrument for each service account, even a dedicated identification instrument collecting a customer's identification codes for each service account he is subscribed to is not required. A customer may be able to identify himself by an identification instrument of his choice, since only one identification code, in combination with the requested service or its service provider, is required for determination of the service account. Further, by linking his identification code to a number of identification instruments of his choice, it is sufficient that the customer has only one of these instruments available at the moment he intends to use a service.

Further, in case the customer is a group of people, a number of customer identification codes belonging to the members of such group may be linked to the same service account. For example, employees employed in a company subscribed to a store's loyalty program, may be linked to the same loyalty program account, upon identifying themselves as individual person in such store. Further, a method and system according to the present invention may provide one or a combination of functionalities such as business intelligence, segmented communication based on customer profiling, mystery shopping.

In a particular embodiment related to business intelligence, a method in accordance with the present invention may be provided wherein the step of consulting comprise communicating specific confidential service account content to parties other than the costumer and the service provider and being involved to the service. Such party other than the costumer or the service provider may be for example a manufacturer, an insurance company, etc.

In particular, a method and system according to the present invention may use lunch tickets as modality of payment wherein the step of consulting comprises consulting known product list and brands. Furthermore, the available number of lunch tickets and identification codes associated to customer are consulted upon request.

The method and system described above further couples product codes with receipt number and customer's identification code. Preferably, a method according to the present invention may communicate the number of used lunch tickets after the payment has been completed. More preferably, said communication can be done in real-time. In case the communication is not done in real-time, and said customer does not have lunch tickets available anymore, the method according to the present invention can further debit the corresponding value from other stored service accounts, like for example the customer's financial account. Communicating specific confidential service account data may be provided at those parties by communication dashboards. For example, a system and method in accordance with the present invention may be used in a multi-role loyalty program, wherein each role, i.e. the costumer, the loyalty service provider, the manufacturer, etc., uses a communication dashboard for consulting role-specific confidential service account data.

By using communication dashboards for every party involved in the service, communication links may be provided, not only between consumer and service provider, but also between service provider and for example a manufacturer, or between the consumer and the manufacturer. Via his dedicated communication dashboard, each party may have the ability to manage the status of a particular service.

As written above, only information needed for identification of the customer and the requested service or its service provider is stored in the service account database, i.e. the service account database manages data streams between service providers, POS's, and consumers, but does not manage the database content of those service providers, POS's and consumers. EXAMPLE 1 :

A consumer links the services he is subscribed to to his bank card of which the hash is stored in the service account database (SAD). Additionally, the costumer also stores the hash of his cell phone in the service account database. When the customer is at a service provider's premises, he identifies himself by means of his bank card or by his cell phone, whatever he has available at that moment. As illustrated in FIG 1 , the controller module from the service provider's point-of-sale (POS) or the bank card terminal (T) connected to it hashes the card or the cell phone (arrow 1 ) and queries the SAD (arrow 2). The determination program on the SAD recognizes the hash, and responds the corresponding service account in de SAD based on the identity of the customer and the origin of the query (arrow 2)

The SAD connects in real-time to the service provider's database (SPD1 , 2, 3) and queries the confidential service account content it needs (arrow 3). The SAD provides the confidential service account content to the controller module from the service provider's POS (arrow 4) and may visualize it via a visualization system on the POS (not shown). The POS settles and concludes the service with the corresponding SPD (arrow 5).

Alternatively and as shown in FIG 2, upon receiving the corresponding service account (arrow 2), the controller module from the service provider's POS directly queries the service provider's database (SPD1 , 2, 3) for the confidential service account content it needs, settles and concludes the service with the corresponding SPD (arrow 6).

EXAMPLE 2:

A multi-role loyalty program using a method or system according to the present invention is described below and illustrated in FIG 3:

The first time a consumer uses his consumer dashboard he can register the identification means (ID1 , ID2, ID3) of his choice. The consumer dashboard hashes those means. The hash is streamed to the SAD (arrow 7) and in the SAD the hashes are all linked to same consumer identification code.

Via his consumer dashboard a consumer is able to consult which service providers (SPD1 , SPD2, SPD3), for example manufacturers, are linked to the system and provide a loyalty program. The consumer can subscribe to any of the provided loyalty programs (L1 , L2, L3). The subscribed loyalty programs are stored in the SAD (arrow 8) and linked to the consumer identification code.

Upon identification at a POS with any available identification means, the service account corresponding to the consumer and the loyalty program he subscribed to is determined. The POS settles the service with the corresponding manufacturer's SPD.

Both at the POS and at the manufacturer's site, the communication dashboard is updated in real-time, such that the POS is informed that for example the stock of a product is decreasing and that the manufacturer is informed that a specific consumer has made use of his loyalty program. The SPD (manufacturer) can react immediately and can sent in real-time an additional loyalty, which the consumer can consult on his consumer dashboard (arrow 9). EXAMPLE 3:

A lunch ticket payment program using a method or system according to the present invention is described below and illustrated in FIG 4 and FIG 5: The employer connects the service of using lunch tickets to each employee account, which is stored in the service account database (SAD).

When the employee is at the service provider's premises, he identifies himself by any means described in the present paper: bank card, phone number or any means available. As illustrated in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, the controller module at the service provider's point-of-sale (POS) queries the SAD (arrow 2) in real time. The SAD recognizes the hash and provides the corresponding service account of the employee based on the identity. The SAD connects in real time to the service provider database (SPD) and queries the confidential account content (arrow 3). Through arrow 4, the system will check the corresponding list of agreed products (PT1 , PT2) and brands (BL1 , BL2). The SPD will further connect the product code to the lunch ticket code (PC1 , PC2) (arrow 5).

The SAD will provide the information to the controller who settles and concludes the service through the ECR.

EXAMPLE 4:

A multi-role loyalty program using a method or system according to the present invention for an online payment system is described below: The first time a customer uses his customer dashboard he/she can register the identification means of his choice, like for example a username and a password together with other identification means of his choice. Via his customer dashboard, a customer is able to consult which service providers (SPD1 , SPD2, SPD3), for example manufacturers, are linked to the system and provide a loyalty program. The customer can subscribe to any of the provided loyalty programs (L1 , L2, L3). The subscribed loyalty programs are stored in the SAD and linked to the customer identification means.

The customer can further register communication instruments as desired, like for example: printing a receipt of a certain payment or a pro forma invoice while being in the premises of a registered service provider, e-mail communication after completion of a payment informing about the status of the loyalty programs, or pop-up message comprising said status.

In the case of an online payment request, the customer would have to identify himself by the customer and password saved or by introducing any other identification means registered and the SAD will determine the service account of said customer.

In case of a loyalty program with specific allowable values, a real-time check is further performed in case said value is reached. If the outcome of the check is positive, then the service account content is updated in real-time and a pop-up message may also be displayed on the customer's screen informing him/her about the completion of the loyalty program. If the outcome of the check is not positive, the service account content is updated in real time and a pop-up message may be further displayed on the customer's screen informing him/her about the remaining value. Further, another message could be sent to the customer either as a pop-up message on the customer's screen, informing him the value he/she is able to save by using a certain loyalty program, or through any communication means stored on the customer's account. In case said customer would be in the premises of the service provider and if stored against the account of the customer, the SAD will communicate to the POS to print a receipt upon recognizing the hash. Said receipt can comprise the status of the loyalty programs the customer is subscribed to, or the receipt can comprise the status of a certain program the customer is subscribed to, or the receipt can comprise the value said customer is able to save by using such a program. Moreover, such a receipt could be provided by the POS at the service provider to the customer, prior to completing the payment, informing the customer about the final value he/she would have to pay. In case the customer would agree, the payment can be finalized and the customer account updated.

Furthermore, the SAD can provide upon request updated information regarding the stock value of the service providers registered on the customer account or the sales status for such a service provider.

EXAMPLE 5:

A payment program using a cumulative loyalty program and using a method or system in accordance with the present invention is described below:

The customer registers to any desired loyalty programs, each having their own specifications, like for example: performing payment requests at the same service provider for a number of times within a given period, or at the same chain of service providers for a certain number of times within a given period, or at a number of service providers within a given period, or a certain paid value at a certain service provider or certain service providers within a given period.

Said specifications are saved on the customer's account together with the identification means.

Each time said customer would use one of the loyalty programs, the controller at the service provider's POS will communicate to the SAD, and the SAD will further update in real-time the customer's account. In case desired, the SAD can communicate to the controller at the service provider's POS to print the status of the loyalty program, and the controller can further send the request to the POS. Depending on the characteristics of the loyalty program, the printed status can be further used in the premises of another service provider, or it is printed for informational purposes: like for example: value spent, value needed to be reached to meet the requirements of the loyalty program, or amount of money saved by the usage of the loyalty program, in case said requirements are met.

EXAMPLE 6:

An example of a loyalty program using a method or system in accordance with the present invention is described below:

When the customer is at the service provider's premises, he identifies himself by any means he has registered and available with him/her at that moment. The service provider's POS will start an initialization session with the SAD in order to establish a secure link between the POS and SAD.

The POS will send a unique key and will receive a unique key in response together with a transaction sequence number. The unique key, the response and sequence number received from the SAD can be stored in a record on the service provider's back-office system and they can also be stored on the SAD.

Further, when a payment request is received by the SAD, the unique key and sequence number should be received from the POS as part of the transaction data. The SAD will check if the unique key and sequence number are correct. The SAD server can further raise an exception if the transaction number is out of sequence. Further, a pro forma invoice can be requested at any moment during the payment process by the service provider, without committing anything at the SAD. Said pro forma invoice can be used to determine the name of the customer, their in-store reference number, or if they are entitled to any rewards. It should always be called in order to calculate the total amount prior to payment. Once a loyalty program is used, or a specific ticket is used, the customer is informed and the loyalty program or specific ticket is marked as having been used, or an incrementing function is applied in case of a cumulative loyalty program. Preferably, this is performed on a real-time basis.

Another option is to provide an ECR/sequence number combination of the payment and can be used in situations where the loyalty program is redeemed at a location other than that specific service provider (in which case the ECR/sequence number is printed on the receipt).

For overview purposes, an XML file comprising all results for an ECR/sequence number/date range and is intended for use in customized reports or in batch processing like for example: end of day reconciliation or stock consolidation. The XML file will comprise payments made within a period of time.

For each payment request, the SAD can prepare an XML receipt comprising relevant data about the location, moment in time and type of the payment request. Said receipt can be further sent to the service provider.

The data comprised on the prepared receipt is processed by the SAD for the purpose of determining the value of any loyalty programs to be applied like vouchers or loyalty cards stored centrally against the customer identification.

The resulting subset of available loyalty programs is processed according to the customer's priority. Said priority can be selected upon registering to each of the loyalty programs. Furthermore, whenever a customer selects a high priority offer to add to his basket, the SAD will check against any other offers in his basket. If there is a conflict of interest he is notified and has to elect which of them to use first and possibly the option to place any others on hold.

Non-conflicting coupons are processed in the order in which they were received into the basket with the high priority offers processed first.

Further, the receipt is processed against every loyalty program in the customer's account. The receipt is analyzed and items matched against a loyalty program to determine if it qualifies for such a loyalty program. If said loyalty program is of high priority, the process will ignore items that have already been processed as part of another high priority loyalty program . Further, the items within the qualifying group are marked to indicate that they have been used in this loyalty program (and if it is exclusive).

The ticket or loyalty program is marked as having been used.

Further, for security purposes, the local server at the service provider's POS will poll the SAD online with information of loyalty programs or tickets that have been used to prevent multiple use of a single use coupon in different stores.

In case the loyalty program is cumulative the process as described herein is repeated for this program until the receipt no longer qualifies. The processing as described above may be achieved in real time at the POS. It can also be achieved at a later moment in time, by processing the data on a computer on which the receipt data has been stored by posting the receipt data to software residing on the same system as the POS or by communicating the receipt data to a server on which the software resides, like for example over the Internet. Further, processing said data may also be performed directly by the SAD and further adjusting the information about the loyalty program accordingly,

Claims

CLAIMS:

1 . A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services comprising the following steps:

storing a plurality of service accounts, each corresponding to a customer and a service said customer is subscribed to, receiving a request from a customer for using a service, determining a service account upon identifying such customer and the requested service or its service provider, wherein identifying such customer comprises hashing any available identification instrument of a number of identification instruments linked to said customer's identification code,

consulting confidential service account content corresponding to said service account, said consulting comprising real-time communicating with said service provider, said service provider providing real-time access to said confidential service account content, characterized in that the method further comprises linking the steps of identifying a customer and the step of determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS)

2. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claim 1 , wherein identification of said customer comprises hashing a chip card, a magnetic strip card, an RFID card, an RFID tag, a telephone, a mobile phone, a Bluetooth device, a barcode, a MAC-address, and the like.

3. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claim 1 to 2, wherein the electronic cash register (ECR) and/or the service provider's point-of-sale (POS) are virtual.

4. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claims 1 to 3, further comprising associating said confidential service account content with a said customer's financial account.

5. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claim 4, further comprising connecting to a payment platform.

6. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claims 1 to 5, wherein said service is a banking service, a loyalty program, a warranty service, a rental service, a prepayment service, a coupon service, a ticketing service, a meal ticketing service, a health care service, a governmental service and the like.

7. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claims 1 to 6 wherein said consulting further comprises: starting an initialization session with a service account database (SAD) and creating a pro forma invoice.

8. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claims 1 to 7, further comprising transmitting new confidential service account content to said service provider.

9. A method for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claims 1 to 8, wherein said consulting further comprises communicating specific confidential service account data via communication dashboards to parties other than said costumer and said service provider and being involved to the service.

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein said service is a multi-role loyalty program.

1 1 .A system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services comprising: a means for storing a plurality of service accounts, each

corresponding to a customer and a service said customer is subscribed to,

a determination means for determining a service account upon identification of such customer and the requested service or its service provider,

an identification means for identifying said customer adapted for hashing any available identification instrument of a number of identification instruments linked to said customer's identification code,

a consulting means for consulting confidential service account content corresponding to said service account, said consulting means adapted to communicate real-time with said service provider, said service provider providing real-time access to said confidential service account content. characterized in that the system further comprises means for

connecting the identification means of a customer and the means for determining the service account to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service provider's point-of-sale (POS).

12. A system for providing universal access to services according to claim 11 , wherein the system further comprises a controller module connecting the identification means to an electronic cash register (ECR) at a service point- of-sale (POS) and to the means for storing a plurality of service accounts, and which additionally connects a payment platform.

13. A system for providing universal access to services according to claim 11 to 12, wherein said identification means comprises any kind of tool to read a customer's identification code from any identification instrument such as a chip card, a magnetic strip card, an RFID card, an RFID tag, a telephone, a mobile phone, a Bluetooth device, a barcode, a MAC-address, and the like.

14. A system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claims 11 to 13, wherein said service is a banking service, a loyalty program, a warranty service, a rental service, a prepayment service, a coupon service, a ticketing service, a health care service, a governmental service, and the like.

15. A system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claims 11 to 14 wherein said consulting means comprise communication dashboards for providing role-specific

confidential service account data.

16. A system for providing universal access to a service amongst a plurality of services according to claim 15, wherein said service is a multi-role loyalty program.

17. A multi-role loyalty program using a system for providing universal access according to claims 11 to 15.

18. A multi-role loyalty program using a method for providing universal access according to claims 1 to 9.

19. A multi-role loyalty program according to claims 1 7 or 18, wherein for each role a communication dashboard is provided.