Loyalty & Rewards

One Banker’s View Of Apple Pay Threats

Apple has signed up more than 500 banks for Apple Pay, but some bank executives whose institutions are on board with the...

Is Mobile The Key To Better Loyalty Programs?

Pop quiz—what is the best type of customer?  Although “rich” might be the easiest go-to answer, “loyal” is perhaps a better answer because,...

What Only The “Almost Famous” Know About Payments

Nobody in the real world likes failure.  When new business ventures are launching, entrepreneurs talk about the great and potent success they...

Starbuck Mobile Ordering Hits Portland, U.S. Launch 2015

Mobile ordering is a buzz in Portland’s Starbucks market, as the company announced a new app Thursday (Oct. 16) that will enable customers to order...

Chase Payments Reinvents Its Loyalty Program

Faced with research that shows many U.S. customers consider a strong rewards program more important than interest rates when choosing which credit...

Why Retailers Love Store Credit

You can get a store credit card at just about any retailer. The standard question has left consumers with the often split-second...

You’ll Never Guess Who’s Mining Facebook Data

MasterCard has agreed to a 2-year-contract to mine user data from Facebook Asia-Pacific, packaging it and then reselling it to banks. “MasterCard...

Amex, McDonalds Cut Realtime Rewards Deal

The idea of using American Express points to redeem various rewards is hardly new, but in a joint rollout with McDonalds, the...

Malls Embrace Geolocation

Among the myriad of problems mall-based retailers face in the era of diminished traffic to the traditional shopping box, is the issue...

Payments By The Numbers

Want to be the smartest person in the room on Monday morning? Check out a few of the stats that you may...

PayPal and (no) Apple Pay | Is Samsung To Blame?

There’s nothing better than a juicy story. And the juicy story this week was what is said to have lead up to...

The Art Of Raising Money

Victor Ho, the CEO of 3-year-old loyalty firm FiveStars, has become a veteran of the capital-raising game as he has built his...

Advice To PayPal: Don’t Forget Main Street

North American Bancard CEO Marc Gardner is not a big fan of shopping at large national retailers, saying that he much prefers...

Capital One’s App Will Work With Apple Pay

The Apple Pay bandwagon will have to make room for one more as Capital One has rolled out a new mobile wallet app for cardholders...

Google Wallet’s Loyalty Lift

Loyalty and CRM services and technology company Brierley+Partners has announced Google Wallet support that will allow customers to better organize their various...

Online Marketplace Fashionism’s Rewards Innovation? Cash Rewards

Fashionism.com’s new way to keep customers loyal is as old school as it gets–giving customers cash back to keep them coming back....

CreditCard.com’s New App To Help Users Keep Their Rewards Programs Straight

Americans holding more than one “rewards” card that offer discounts and cash back for different types of purchases can easily get lost...

StartUp Finds Gold In Online Transaction Data

There is no question that people are buying things online in ever increasing numbers or that they are creating reams of data...

FiveStars Raises $26 Million

FiveStars, a 3-year-old loyalty reward firm focused on small businesses, has raised $26 million. “Menlo Ventures led the Series B investment, joined...

Visa’s Next Big Business: Tokens and Data

Apple Pay may be the catalyst that mobile payments needed to get the payments ecosystem cranking, but that’s not all it did....

Apple Pay, Now That We’ve Sobered Up

Just about everyone seemed absolutely giddy over Tim Cook’s breathless announcement of how Apple is revolutionizing payments. I’m hoping now that maybe,...

Lootsie Brings Mobile Only Rewards To Market

Lootsie, a startup that allows advertisers target mobile-only rewards to users, announced today that it has hired its first chief operating officer, Steve Cho....

CardLab Acquired By Blackhawk

Blackhawk Network announced that it has completed the acquisition of Dallas, Texas-based CardLab, Inc.,  and online provider of prepaid and rewards cards.  The move comes...

Alliance Data’s $2.3 Billion Acquisition Deal

Alliance Data systems has agrees to acquire Conversant for $2.3 billion.  The purchase will reportedly allow Alliance to form an end-to-end marketing...

Over the past week, PYMNTS.com’s brief’s coverage in this newsletter has spanned a broad variety of issues. In this column, we take...

Apple To Get Rebates From Issuers on Fees

Apple has reportedly negotiated deals with several leading issuers to extend card present rates to Apple for all transactions involving their cards...

Trends Of The Week

Over the past week, PYMNTS.com’s brief’s coverage in this newsletter has spanned a broad variety of issues. In this column, we take...

Funding Circle’s Faster-Loan-Approval Deal

Funding Circle, a U.K.-based peer-to-peer loans platform that  lets small businesses connect with individuals for funding, has acquired U.S.-based stealth startup LeapPay...

AmEx And Discover Top JD Power Payment Card Survey

American Express and Discover tied for the top spot in J.D. Power’s annual U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study, American Banker reported on...

Who’s On Your 2014 Fantasy Payments Team?

Even though the official end of Summer isn’t for another few weeks, the impending turn of the calendar pages from August to...

Chase Rewards Ditches Paper For Credits

JPMorgan Chase is eliminating cash-back checks from its rewards program for Chase Sapphire, Chase Freedom and Ink credit card customers, according to...

How Is Retail Doing This Quarter?

Earlier this week, the National Retail Federation reported that July retail sales, excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, were flat, growing just...

Amazon Rolls Out mPOS, Undercuts Fees From Square, PayPal

Amazon on Wednesday (Aug. 13) introduced its own mPOS package—to be called Amazon Local Register—and focused on the tune it knows that SMB...

Condé Nast’s Epicurious Makes Second Big iBeacon Push Of 2014

Condé Nast’s Epicurious is making its second big iBeacon push of 2014.  Swirl—the business behind Hudson’s and Lord and Taylor’s recent iBeacon upgrades—will...

Mobile Coupon Predictions: Coming To Grips With What Is Unknowable

Executives always want to know where a particular trend—especially a payment type—will be many years in the future. But it takes a...

Simon Will Make Its Malls Smart The iBeacon Way

Retail real estate developer Simon is moving to make mall-based shopping a little more technologically advanced with beacons. Simon has expanded its...

Migration Of Shoppers Away From Physical Stores Continues

Call it the efficiency effect, but shoppers are making an increasingly large number of their purchases outside of physical stores—or at the...

Blackberry Stock Plunges On News Of Apple/IBM Partnership

Just when things were starting to look up for Blackberry, Apple has swooped in and  disrupted it … again. Until now, things...

PayPal Takes On Passbook With New Loyalty Card Feature

PayPal has updated it’s iOS app to version 5.5, and with that comes a new ability for users by providing an mWallet...

SnagaStool Thinks It Can Monetize The Bar stool (And Become The OpenTable Of Drinking)

Yesterday a curious phenomenon swept the nation--a sudden and overwhelming desire to be in a bar of the middle of the work...

Uber And AMEX Partner On Points

Yesterday, ride-sharing start-up and fundraising juggernaut Uber announced a partnership with American Express that will allow Uber users who are also qualified cardholders enrolled...