Loyalty and rewards

As the gift card market grows and becomes increasingly digital, so has the product's utility. Thus, many consumers are shifting their habits and buying gift cards for themselves either due to an incentive program or to help with budgeting.

Customers can access personalized offers through the banking provider’s app, which means every time they earn rewards, find new deals and receive a helpful reminder of a bargain they do not want to miss, writes Mehmet Sezgin, CEO and Founder of MyGini.

Clearly communicating with customers on a powerful engagement platform is enough to increase customer confidence, writes Donika Kraeva, strategic communications manager at Dentacoin.

To combat this loyalty fatigue, retailers need to design their programs to be frequent, relevant, interactive and visible, writes Mehmet Sezgin, CEO and founder of MyGini.

Despite the fervor over mobile wallets and banking, one day consumers may never need to open a dedicated bank or payment app.

American Express has positioned itself as a small-business champion for decades, but its partnership with Amazon illustrates the paradox of supporting mom-and-pop shops by enabling them to buy supplies from their largest competitor.

Intent on rapidly capturing the value and benefits of these new services, companies too often take a path of least resistance to cloud assessment and operational planning, writes Justin Yunag, chief digital officer, financial services for Atos North America Operations.

Marks & Spencer is the first major U.K. retailer to launch a mobile scanning and payment app in its stores. Several U.K. supermarket chains have launched pilots of cashierless and checkout-free mobile shopping, but have yet to roll out services.

Allowing third-party access to bank data will open up the opportunity for far wider data aggregation than previously possible, writes Huw Davies, CCO of Token.

To remain competitive, retailers must always have one eye on the future. Mobile wallets offer a strategic platform for retailers to harness and promote emerging payment models, writes Julian Wallis, retail director at Rambus.

Emotional connections can make a difference when consumers have many different ways to shop and pay, according to Tom Caporaso, CEO of Clarus Commerce.

A growing number of credit unions are balancing whether to offer points or other perks as a thank you for member loyalty and spending.

Gift card, reward points and payment information will continue to be exposed and available to whoever wants to purchase it. But it’s up to companies to implement security barriers that devalue this information, writes Don Duncan, security engineer for NuData Security.

Payments will melt into the wider commerce experience and create new incremental value for consumers, according to Brendan Miller, a principal analyst at Forrester.

The Merchant Customer Exchange may not have succeeded, but there is still value to the concept that drove the retailer-driven wallet, according to Brian Crist, chief payments counsel at Uber.

By bringing Prime benefits to the movie industry, through discounts or a MoviePass/subscription-based model, Amazon could entice even more users to its loyalty program, writes Tom Caporaso, CEO of Clarus Commerce.

Uber’s latest app update adds a stored-value account that incentivises riders to dive deeper into the Uber ecosystem — and away from their bank or mobile wallet provider.

The loyalty and rewards landscape is in a state of flux. Consumers are being bombarded with a bewildering range of options, and they are primed to jump ship when a better offer comes along – perhaps half have switched to a new credit card in the past year.

How banks are vying for leverage in the rewards space and where their points of vulnerability may lie.

Amazon Go may be stealing the spotlight, but it is far from alone in the rush to revolutionize in-store checkout through the use of sensors, scanners, mobile devices and more.