Loyalty and rewards

The Peach State is the latest to offer gamified savings programs as an incentive to draw in deposits and improve consumers' behavior.

Readers react to the FDIC's proposal allowing banks to hire ex-cons, regulators looking into climate-change risk at banks, whether rewards programs drive loyal customers and more.

By attaching to Honey and its base of 17 million mostly young, female consumers who use the platform to find the best price on e-commerce deals, PayPal also is aiming to get closer to merchants with customized offers.

Bryce VanDiver and Daniela Hawkins at Capco make the case that offering easy-to-use payment rewards is the way to win the loyalty of digital-only customers.

The challenge is to digitize digital currency rewards in such a way where a retailer could issue its own token, and that token could be used at a multitude of retailers, says cryptocurrency lawyer Felix Shipkevich.

While American Express initially lost customers after JPMorgan Chase introduced the popular Sapphire Reserve premium card in 2016, the firm said it's seen a 60% increase in growth in Platinum accounts.

PayPal is adding rewards to its Venmo credit card in a way that seems to echo Apple's strategy with Apple Card.

Uber launched a series of financial services to provide real-time wage payments and enhanced account features in a single app, seemingly putting Uber in the role of a digital bank.

American Express has updated its classic Green card with a new set of travel and dining perks and a significantly higher annual fee.

Visa is retooling its small-business credit cards by expanding credit card lines, adding travel insurance and product-warranty extensions and making it easier for business owners to integrate card accounts with accounting software.