American Express eyes blockchain for customer rewards systems — CoinDesk — “A new patent application published last week by the US Patent and Trademark Office details a concept for offering customer-specific types of rewards (including points, a virtual currency or specific items tied to a product). The filing indicates the financial giant would make these offers by compiling personalized data about the customer, such as their historic spending patterns.”
Loyalty
Dubai to add loyalty points to transit card
Dubai’s RTA to introduce loyalty programme for Nol cards — Gulf Business — “The programme, called Nol+, will be available to the public by the end of this year. Cardholders will receive points for using them to pay for fares of public transport means, parking fees, entering public parks, and visiting the Etihad Museum. The points will then be converted into coupon vouchers offering free services in cafes, restaurants and entertainment centres.”
Ant Financial signs mobile wallet joint venture deal in Hong Kong
CK Hutchison and Ant Financial form strategic partnership to provide digital financial inclusive services in Hong Kong — CK Hutchison — “The two companies will form a joint venture to offer a consumer-oriented digital wallet under the ‘AlipayHK’ brand… CK Hutchison Group and its affiliated companies’ consumer networks have over 124m retail loyalty members and over 123m telecom and 35m utility customers… The joint venture is expected to be completed by the end of 2017, subject to regulatory approval.”
Hilton lets customers pay with points for Amazon purchases
Hilton Honors members can now shop with points on Amazon — Hilton — “Members simply need to complete a one-time link of their Hilton Honors account to their Amazon.com account. Once complete, Hilton Honors members can choose the amount of points they wish to use when checking out their purchase at Amazon.com.”
Premier Food Service adds rewards to contactless vending machines
Premier Food Service selects USA Technologies as a strategic partner as they move toward connecting 100% of their machines to cashless payment — USA Technologies — PARTNER NEWS — “‘As personalization becomes more common in the marketplace, we wanted to be one step ahead of the trend with customer loyalty and reward programs being at the center of our go-to-market strategy,’ said Gary Kurth, chief operations officer, Premier Food Service… ‘USAT has made it easy for companies like ours to quickly deploy innovative cashless payment technologies across our business so that we can better engage consumers at the point-of-sale and build in customer loyalty programs.’”
Samsung Pay rolls out loyalty program in Singapore
Samsung introduces latest series of enhanced wearables and new Samsung Pay loyalty programme — Samsung — “Consisting of three loyalty tiers – Gold, Silver and Bronze – users can level up across the tiers after meeting a target number of transactions. With each level-up achieved in the Samsung Rewards programme, users can get to earn more points per transaction, reaping additional rewards in return.”
Burger King has launched its own cryptocurrency in Russia called WhopperCoin
Burger King has launched its own cryptocurrency in Russia called WhopperCoin — CNBC — “With each purchase of the burger chain’s signature Whopper sandwich, customers can receive WhopperCoin tokens via a digital wallet… WhopperCoin transactions will be powered by Ethereum rival Waves’ distributed ledger network. The blockchain platform allows users to issue and transfer custom blockchain tokens, and to trade them on an integrated peer-to-peer exchange.”
From the high street to the handset: How banks can stay connected to consumers in the smartphone era
While banks may no longer need a presence on every high street to stay connected with their customers, they do need to remain very visible, especially on the smart device, to avoid being relegated to the place of a utility, payments technology provider Dejamobile’s Lorcan Burke tells NFC World readers in an in-depth article that explores the changing role of banks in the smartphone era... More
More than half the Hilton portfolio to be digital key enabled by end of year
More than half the Hilton portfolio to be digital key enabled by end of year — Hilton — “Hilton Honors members have widely adopted the app’s technology features and continue to set new records for usage and engagement, including 30m digital check-ins, three million room key downloads and more than 13.6m doors opened. In the month of July, a door was unlocked with Digital Key every two seconds.”
JCPenney adds credit cards and loyalty rewards to Apple Pay
Customers of US department store chain JCPenney can now add the retailer’s credit card to Apple Pay and make contactless payments at any of the company’s stores nationwide... More
PayPal to let Citibank and Chase customers pay with loyalty points
Citibank and JPMorgan Chase customers across the US will soon be able to make online purchases using loyalty points as currency at “millions of merchants” that accept PayPal... More
Tesco brings mobile and contactless rewards to millions of UK supermarket shoppers
UK-based supermarket giant Tesco has launched a contactless version of its Clubcard reward scheme that lets customers “simply tap at the checkout to add their points”... More
Survey finds consumers view contactless shopping as both ‘cool’ and ‘creepy’
A survey of consumer attitudes to emerging technologies has found that the majority of both US and European consumers now believe that using fingerprint scanning to pay for purchases is ‘cool’ — but UK and European consumers are divided on the idea of contactless shopping services like Amazon Go, with 40% considering the technology to be ‘cool’ and 31% seeing it as ‘creepy’... More
Scotiabank adds multi-loyalty programs to mobile banking apps
Customers of Canada’s Scotiabank can now add, access and track their loyalty cards from 18 different programs using the bank’s mobile banking and My Mobile Wallet apps, which have been integrated with “multi-loyalty program functionality” supplied by loyalty network Points... More
Urban Airship analysis of retailers’ mobile wallet coupons and loyalty cards reveals widespread peer-to-peer sharing
Urban Airship analysis of retailers’ mobile wallet coupons and loyalty cards reveals widespread peer-to-peer sharing — Urban Airship — “Analysis of more than one million Apple Wallet coupons and loyalty cards of major retail brands shows that for every mobile wallet pass a customer installs, it is shared and added to 3.3 other mobile devices on average… More than three-quarters of retailers’ installed passes were the result of sharing versus being created and distributed through their marketing channels.”
Punchh brings Apple Pay to restaurant loyalty program
Punchh brings Apple Pay to restaurant loyalty program — Punchh — “Users visiting participating restaurants will soon be able to not only pay for their purchases, but earn and redeem rewards and loyalty points using Apple Wallet… Brands including Smashburger, Quiznos, and MOD Pizza will be offering Apple Pay with the Punchh integrated solution starting later this year.”
San Francisco retailers offer special discounts and prizes through Apple Pay
US consumers will be given exclusive offers and discounts on purchases when they choose to make a payment using Apple Pay in stores across the Hayes Valley Shopping District and San Francisco Marina as part of Apple’s Lose your Wallet promotion... More
Amazon gives 2% rewards back to Prime members who deposit cash via their bank account
Amazon gives 2% rewards back to Prime members who deposit cash via their bank account — GeekWire — “Amazon Prime Reload gives customers 2% back when they reload their Amazon Gift Card Balance with a connected checking account and linked debit card. For example, if you load $100 onto your Gift Card Balance from your checking account, you’ll get an extra $2 in Amazon dollars added within minutes.”
Target to combine offers with mobile payments to create a “one-stop shop” for customers
Customers of US retail giant Target will soon be able to redeem offers and make in-store payments using a single service on their mobile phone, as the chain announces plans to fully integrate its Cartwheel offers app into its main Target mobile app to enable a “one-stop shop”... More
French casino to give visitors and employees biometric cards for access and payments
Visitors and employees at the newly opened Pleinair Casino in Marseilles, France will soon be given a biometric smart card equipped with a fingerprint sensor that will enable them to gain access to privileged areas and make payments across the venue... More