A financial card transaction system for protecting the financial transactions against fraud, by reducing the dissemination of the cardholder's account code and the transaction data. The system includes a plurality of retail sales, each having a card reader that is connected by data channels to a transaction center with a computer that includes cardholder's records and a transaction number generator. The transaction number uniquely identifies each transaction undertaken within a given time frame and is the only number printed out on a transaction ticket at the retail site, while transaction data, such as cost, type of merchandise, cardholder's account number, etc. are not printed out at the retail site, but only at the transaction center where it is included in the monthly or quarterly statement printed by the computer and sent to both cardholder and retail site. Encryption may be included in order to prevent the unauthorized monitoring of the data flow. A telephone interface may be provided at the retail site so that a cardholder may call and send his account number and personal identity number from a push button telephone.