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Verifone, Whole Foods first to add support for loyalty cards in Apple Pay
Apple announced on Monday that it will be adding store loyalty cards and rewards programs to Apple Pay with the release of iOS 9 later this year.
In order to support contactless loyalty cards via NFC terminals, payment terminal manufacturers need to be onboard and activate the functionality in their terminals. As reported by 9to5Mac, Verifone will be one of the first manufacturers to do so.
Verifone announced yesterday that it will enable support for contactless loyalty cards – albeit in only two of its NFC terminal models – allowing a total of six U.S. and global retailers to accept contactless loyalty and rewards cards via Apple Pay.
As noted by 9to5Mac, Verifone did not specify which retailers were included in its statement; however, the publication managed to discover the names. The six retailers include Dunkin’ Donuts, JC Penney’s, Kohl’s, Panera Bread, Wegmans Food Markets, and Whole Foods.
From Apple’s side, it said on Monday that Walgreens Balance Rewards, Kohl’s Yes2You Reward program, Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, Panera Bread, Wegmans Food Markets, BJ’s Wholesale Club, and JCPenney would support the feature at launch in September.
While there is some overlap on those two lists, Whole Foods, a prominent Apple Pay partner, is notably absent from Apple’s list.
In a subsequent report, 9to5Mac said it had learned that Whole Foods will be among the handful of retailers to support loyalty cards and rewards programs in Apple Pay come September.
Citing sources close to the situation, 9to5Mac cautioned that the adoption and subsequent roll out of support for contactless loyalty cards and rewards programs is likely to be a slow process, as each NFC terminal manufacturer has to activate support on a case by case basis.
This process may well be sped up as other major players enter the contactless payments market. Google’s Android Pay, announced last month, also supports loyalty cards and rewards programs and is likely to drive significant demand from Android users.
Support for loyalty cards and rewards programs in Apple Pay will roll out alongside iOS 9 and the new Wallet app (previously known as Passbook).
Image via Verifone
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