Contactless Smart Cards, RFID, Payment, Transit and Security

Retailers turning to loyalty card schemes amid recession

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The recession has lead a growing number of organizations to launch smart card-based loyalty schemes in hopes of boosting profits, according to hidglobal.com.

Smart loyalty cards come equipped with contactless technology to offer greater speed and security than ‘non-technology’ loyalty cards, says HID Global.


The consumer end hasn’t been as quick to pick up on the loyalty card trend, however. Recent research from Subway shows that there are currently £5.2 billion worth of unused loyalty card points in the UK alone.

To combat this, some retailers, such as WalMart, have begun “instant issuance” schemes, which involve the use of in-store printers to put loyalty cards in the hands of customers right then and there, encouraging more spending from the consumer and greater profit for the retailer.

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Analysis from Datamonitor shows sluggish adoption of contactless payment in the UK due to recession, while Barclaycard is arguing the opposite, according to internetretailing.net.

Gilles Ubaghs, financial analyst at Datamonitor, calls the situation a “catch 22.” Consumers aren’t interested in owning a contactless card if there’s nowhere to use it, and retailers don’t want to invest in contactless POS equipment if so few people are using the cards.

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Dublin-based AIB Merchant Services (AIBMS) has announced the launch of its new customizable loyalty program for small to medium-sized businesses, according to siliconrepublic.com.

The new solution, AIBMS loyaltyplus, uses contactless tags from ZapaTechnology that combine multiple loyalty cards onto one single device accepted at AIBMS point of sale terminals.

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eNational Payments, a provider of mobile and contactless electronic commerce and payment processing services, has a entered into a strategic partnership with Mocapay, enabling its merchants and retailers access to Mocapay’s secure mobile payments solution and mobile marketing engine to reach customers in real-time.

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Retail software provider ILoveVelvet has announced that it is bringing its point-of-sale solutions to the U.S. market.

The technology, a mix of hardware and software, serves luxury brands as well as small and medium-sized retailers, enabling them to execute mobile point-of-sale payments, create a customized in-store experience and enhance product and customer knowledge.

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Nottingham Gateway Hotel has become the first hotel in the UK to introduce a loyalty scheme using sQuid’s contactless smart card solution.

The hotels new ‘We Love to Reward You’ loyalty program offers guests contactless smart cards that can be used to make purchases in the hotel and rack up rewards points redeemable in the hotel’s bar and restaurant.

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Visa is teaming with Turkey’s Akbank and vendor DeviceFidelity to launch a new microSD-based contactless mobile payment system.

Akbank customers will be able to insert DeviceFidelity’s In2Pay microSD into their handsets’ memory card slots, turning them into contactless payments devices that can be used with Visa payWave terminals.

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