Loyalty and rewards

Royal Bank of Canada is providing a virtual reality "try before you buy" experience for its RBC Rewards customers.

Canadians have a simple message for the U.S. credit card industry: Don't fiddle with our rewards programs.

Apple Pay users will have the option to make payments with gift and loyalty cards through an arrangement with Blackhawk Network's digital stored value system.

Big data was supposed to unleash a lot of powerful insights for banks, but many financial institutions still haven’t found a way to harness their own data because the amount of available information is so vast.

Samsung Pay has launched a rewards program for U.S. consumers that allows them to earn points on both credit and debit card purchases — and has an emphasis on encouraging repeated use.

The move is designed to help publishing companies improve coupon and payments performance.

Long one of mobile payments' success stories, Starbucks reports major gains in both mobile ordering and payments.

The additions are part of Samsung's strategy to turn Samsung Pay into a broader commerce platform.

Bluetooth beacons — small transmitters that retailers can use to broadcast offers to shoppers' mobile phones — have always lived at the periphery of the payments world. But that may be changing very soon.

JPMorgan is continuing its push to snag wealthier credit-card users and gain market share.

Rewards are considered a key driver to get consumers to adopt mobile payments, and Walgreens has tied its loyalty program to Android Pay.

At most merchants, mobile wallets have been a solution in search of a problem. But at the pharmacy, every customer already has a problem — possibly several problems — they want to address before they even think about how they want to pay.

Two years after eschewing Apple Pay and NFC, CVS is integrating payments, marketing and prescription ordering in a single bar code-enabled mobile app, replacing a customer experience that currently relies heavily on time-consuming interactions with staff.

The loyalty key fobs that reside alongside car and house keys on a chain is rarely discussed in the plastic card market, but has nonetheless undergone a revolution in recent years. Certainly in the U.K., their popularity has soared.

At its launch in 2004, ThankYou had its own separate identity, customer base and website from the rest of Citi – even logging into the program was difficult.

The hit smartphone game Pokemon Go is not a mobile wallet or a loyalty app, but it is arguably far more successful at driving traffic to retailers' stores than many of the apps designed for that purpose.

Subway is reimagining how ordering, payments and marketing tie together at its sandwich shops. It's in the process of launching a new division called Subway Digital, which will pool the expertise of specialists in technology, marketing and operations rather than give full rein to any one of those disciplines.

Since the introduction of Bluetooth beacons as enablers of in-store location-based marketing, many have seen a clear connection between beacons and mobile payments. As the technology evolves, the connection is not quite as clear.

Most mobile wallet providers and retailers have been hunting for the magic formula that would seamlessly blend loyalty and mobile payments, in the hopes that one would inevitably fuel the other. But it's a delicate recipe, and very easy to get wrong.

Verifone and its beacon technology provider Footmarks are partnering with Allrecipes.com and grocery retailer Marc’s in Ohio to deliver meal recommendations to shoppers.