Weve Adds Pouch App for Loyalty Card Storage

The U.K. mobile commerce initiative Weve has added a digital "pouch" for consumers in the U.K. to store loyalty cards and offers as the telco-owned joint venture continues to develop its product.

The Weve Pouch app runs on technology from Proxama. Weve Pouch was launched this week for testing, the joint venture states in a Feb. 18 press release.

For the past three years, telcos Vodafone U.K., Everything Everywhere and Telefonica O2 U.K. have been developing a full mobile commerce system on top of the country's current payments infrastructure. Originally, the initiative was named Project Oscar.

Earlier this month, Weve announced a partnership with MasterCard to pave the way for the Near Field Communication mobile payment facet of the final product. Consumers and merchants using the Weve system should have mobile payments as an option early next year, Weve says.

"At Weve, we believe that interactions between consumers and retailers will be increasingly mediated through mobile devices, but you have to crack the POS as well as the consumer experience," Sean O'Connell, director of product for Weve, states in the release.

The addition of Proxama's TapPoint software will give retailers different options for proximity marketing, Weve says. Those technologies include NFC, QR codes and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

Weve says it has signed three companies to test Pouch, including sandwich chain Eat, which will test Pouch by using BLE beacons.

Several payments companies are testing BLE beacons as an effective wireless technology for marketing and loyalty programs.

The initial trial with Eat and upcoming work with Proxama "has the potential to bring mobile loyalty at scale to consumers and retailers," O'Connell adds.