Loyalty and rewards

The annual summer shopping bonanza will run across two days for the first time, and other retailers are following suit with offers of their own. Here’s how credit unions can capitalize on it.

The Prime Day event is also a chance for Amazon to showcase a new range of devices and payment options — but in 2019, Amazon is making some key changes to how it asks its audience to shop.

Prepaid card and payments technology company InComm has acquired Meridian Loyalty, a full-service incentives business that caters to corporations.

These programs are allowed in a majority of states, but only a small portion of credit unions offer them. That may change as the need for deposits grows and consumer expectations shift.

H&M will enable Klarna as a payment option in its 580 U.S. stores beginning this fall, building on a partnership the two Swedish companies established last year.

As blockchain use cases grow, retailers are seeing more reasons to use the distributed ledger technology for payments.

Citigroup will be the first major issuer to use Mastercard technology to give U.S. credit card holders the ability to instantly redeem points on eligible purchases online and through a mobile app.

Hackers are flocking to loyalty and rewards programs, pushing marketers to embed extra fraud technology to stem financial losses.

Coffee and doughnut shops such as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Krispy Kreme have been at the forefront of mobile payments, and this technology could soon develop into a completely cashierless experience.

Petal's getting aggressive with its incentive marketing by approaching consumers with limited credit histories, and it's betting artificial intelligence can handle the higher risk.

A crypto-based payments system from Facebook would create more competition and pressure legacy companies to up their game, says Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures.

After quiet experiments, Citigroup is expanding perks designed for credit cards to encourage sales of other banking products.

To fuel growth, Apple's mobile wallet needs to go beyond its core use cases of NFC and in-app payments. Apple Pay's latest project leans more heavily on NFC to do work typically handled by apps.

Apple Card's advantages are mostly available elsewhere, but Apple's marketing prowess will make it a formidable competitor, according to Jonathan Ebinger, a general partner at Blue Run Ventures.

Paytronix has spent the last few years developing a streamlined enrollment process for restaurants’ loyalty programs, but it relies on something relatively few consumers use: Apple Pay and Google Pay at the point of sale.

Mastercard’s real-time incentive marketing initiative is an acknowledgement that requiring consumers to take action to seize a special deal won’t work as well in the mobile age.

Traditional U.S. retail is in crisis at the hands of e-commerce. Bankers have a role to play to stop the bleeding through a combination of service, incentives, and payments technology.

Amazon’s incursion into brick and mortar has been aggressive, but not without its share of course corrections. The latest is a new round of price cuts at Whole Foods amid whispers of slow Prime traffic at the high-end grocer.

Under the hood of U.S. Bank's new mobile app; BofA, Wells Fargo sour on blockchain; are Fannie and Freddie too big?; and more from this week's most-read stories.

The U.K. prepaid gift card market is experiencing strong growth among consumers who buy them as gifts and for self-use, as well as among businesses that purchase them for customer loyalty programs and as employee incentives.