Loyalty and rewards

Apple's plans to display a bright blue bar on iPhone screens when an application is monitoring the user's location may feel like a threat to location-based marketing. More likely, it is an overdue wake-up call for retailers and banks to improve their communication about the benefits of location data.

Punchh is betting NFC will be widespread, and it hopes to get an edge with clients with a direct connection to Apple Pay, enabling consumers to simultaneously earn and redeem restaurant loyalty program points.

Amazon's planned acquisition of Whole Foods adds more power to an already substantial marketing program for Amazon.

Theresa Dold joins LevelUp in the new role of vice president of agency strategy to head the company’s focus on restaurant engagement. Dold previously was director of product at sweetgreen, a fast-casual salad chain that last fall stopped accepting cash payments at some of its stores.

Until now, Amazon's moves seemed like cautious pokes at the deeply ingrained habit of going to a store and paying with a plastic card. Furthermore, any competitors may have seen Amazon's lacking retail store presence as a buffer that kept them at least temporarily safe from the same fate that befell the bookselling world. How naive they were.

Amazon is working aggressively to change the way people shop — especially in the grocery space — but not all of its activities focus on products and store design. The e-commerce giant has also influenced a lot about how people use their payment cards.

Amazon’s new Prime rewards program is the latest way the tech titan is cultivating a loyal use base. To retain and engage customers, banks should follow Amazon’s lead and layer in more value-added services.

A deeper dive into the workings of the Amazon Prime Reload program should give the card payments industry serious cause for concern.

The trade association has teamed up with Retail Benefits to create "CU Perks," a shopping rewards program for CU members in the Pelican State.

In a move that will certainly cause friction across the card payments industry, Amazon announced a new service called Amazon Prime Reload, which incentivizes newcomers to the program to load funds using a debit card or bank account with a 2% cash back on purchases.