Abstract: A payment system and method of conducting a shopping transaction between a customer and a merchant utilizing an approval system over portable phone which controls the acceptance or rejection of the shopping transaction and a financial institution to provide credit or an account that can be debited to pay for the shopping transaction. A first communications link is used between the merchant and the computer approval system and a first customer identification code given by the customer to the merchant is transmitted over the first communications link to the computer approval system for validation thereby. If the first customer identification code is validated by the computer approval system, the computer approval system uses a different, second communications link to a portable wireless telephone that can be a cell phone to obtain the customer approval of the transaction and to obtain from the customer a second customer identification code.