1. A system for stored value card transactions, said system comprising: a gateway into a bank card payments network that includes an ISO 8583 electronic funds transfer service; and an account holder database including at least a bank identification number, an institution ID, and a branch ID, said system further configured to: receive, at said gateway, a transaction message requesting an authorization or denial and remaining account balance data, on an individual transaction associated with said account holder database originally generated by a point of sale system of a retail merchant; parse the transaction message into a series of data elements representing at least a transaction amount, a transaction type, a merchant ID, a bank identification number, an institution ID, a branch ID, and an account identifier; route the message from said gateway through a switch controller to access said account holder database, the message routed based on one or more of the bank identification number, the institution ID and the branch ID; access an account within the database utilizing the account identifier; determine if an account holder's monetary account balance in the accessed account dictates approval or denial of the transaction based upon the transaction type and the transaction amount within the parsed message and calculation of the remaining monetary account balance in the accessed account if the transaction is approved; create an authorization response message based on the determination, for transmission to the point of sale system via said gateway, the authorization response message including at least a unique alpha numeric string representing the monetary account balance for the accessed account, the unique alphanumeric string within an authorization identification response field of the authorization response message, the content of the alpha numeric string based on data within a separate ISO-8583 data field, and an approval or denial of the transaction; and transmit the authorization response message to the point of sale system for at least one of display of the unique alpha numeric string at the point of sale system and printing of the unique alphanumeric string on a receipt generated by the point of sale system as the point of sale system is currently configured.