Loyalty and rewards

Despite the best intentions of Apple and Google to ignite contactless, the QR Code persists as a tenacious legacy technology providing the connective tissue between physical and digital domains. Further evidence of its persistence comes from Facebook.

Facebook is reportedly rolling out a feature that allows users to scan QR codes to earn incentives to shop at nearby stores.

The North American subsidiary of Germany’s Wirecard AG is providing the technology behind a prepaid Visa card that distributes cash rewards to blood donors.

In the past, card issuers could lure new customers by offering a low promotional rate. But regulations in the wake of the financial crisis don't allow rate adjustments, and issuers also can't increase credit lines as they did in the past.

Loyalty programs are getting more sophisticated, but they still typically boil down to a game of collecting and redeeming points.

Mobile apps still account for only about one percent of transactions. There are a few ways to increase adoption, such as targeting payment types that are already tough to make with cash.

Efforts to combine mobile wallets and loyalty programs have had mixed success over the years, but many companies are undeterred. Here are a few that are working to find the right mix of technologies.

Harland Clarke's acquisition of RetailMeNot provides a broader range of marketing technology to serve merchants that are looking to improve mobile-driven sales against competitors such as Shopkick and Foursquare.

Payment and marketing company Harland Clarke Holdings has agreed to buy the popular online coupon site RetailMeNot for an equity value of $630 million, a deal that would add digital discount technology to Harland's existing merchant services.

Transit systems provide a clear use case for mobile payments, allowing commuters to avoid lining up at ticketing machines when they're already in a rush to get to their destination. But many of the perks of mobile wallets, such as targeted offers, don't apply to them.

Ingenico ePayments is giving merchants a new way to engage consumers at the checkout by offering a choice of games enabling participants to win merchandise instead of having to pay for it.

A new generation of Internet-connected vending machines could make digging for spare change and fiddling with uncooperative dollar bills a thing of the past. At a growing number of locations, customers can now pay by credit card and mobile wallet.

Consumers are increasingly positive about loyalty programs, mobile ads, chatbots and making a purchase from a smartphone, despite an early resistance to changing their payment habits when mobile wallets debuted years ago.

U.S. restaurants' EMV migration has lagged behind other retail categories for several reasons, including the hassles of replacing centralized payment systems with pay-at-the-table routines that chip cards often require. But another reason: Restaurateurs have other priorities.

Financial technology provider Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) has entered an agreement that will help create the "ballpark of the future" with Minor League Baseball.

The Plenti loyalty program unfolded two years ago with a new twist on plastic card-based rewards—a multi-merchant coalition in which participants were given exclusivity within their market and consumers could earn points at one retailer and redeem them at another.

Underbanked consumers will have an incentive to initiate mobile payments through PaySwag, an application that will issue rewards for using a smartphone to make a payment and allowing redemption at any time.

A new cap on credit-card transaction fees that comes into force on July 1 means there’ll be less revenue available to fund lavish award programs.

Chase Pay is the result of years of investment in ChaseNet, a closed-loop system that allows JPMorgan Chase to cut costs in a way few other banks could. So what value — if any — does Chase get from buying the discarded remains of the MCX merchants' mobile wallet?

The steady march of smartphone technology makes mobile wallet adoption seem inevitable, but consumers still need convincing.