Abstract: A referral reward program between a merchant, a primary customer and a referred customer comprises providing a database for storage of customer account records, issuing a customer identifier code, and storing details of the primary customer in a customer account record in association with the customer identification code. The primary customer is issued with at least one referral token associated with the merchant. The token has a corresponding referral reward code, which is associated with the primary customer account record in the database. The primary customer may subsequently pass the token on to the referred customer who, in turn, presents the token to the merchant. The referral reward code provided by the referred customer is received and used to retrieve the associated primary customer account record. The primary customer account record is updated to apply a referral reward credit subsequently redeemable with the merchant by the primary customer.