1. A method of distributing commissions to promote use of a non-cash payment device, comprising the steps of: organizing an electronic database to contain member records, each member record identifying a bearer of the non-cash payment device; establishing a hierarchy of relationships among the member records, and storing positional data in the electronic database in association with the member records; operating a purchase processing terminal to record a purchase by one of the members bearing the non-cash payment device; electronically transmitting transaction data from the purchase processing terminal to a commission management processor connected with the electronic database; operating the commission management processor to determine, on the basis of the transaction data, a business volume value, and to record the business volume value in a member record identifying said one member; determining a commission value for said one member on the basis of business volume values recorded in other member records and on the basis of the positional data relating said one member with the other members in the hierarchy; and effecting a monetary payment in the amount of the commission value to said one member.