Problem
I hate having to carry so many loyalty cards around, so much so I decided to go digital and stop carrying the official physical versions issued by the merchants. Apps like StoCard require the checkout operator to scan a barcode on the phone or type a number.
Therein lies the problem with digital loyalty cards. Most merchants’ scanners can’t scan barcodes from phones because the screens are too reflective, even at maximum brightness. As an alternative, you can pass your unlocked phone over to them to manually enter the loyalty card number… sketchy
In most shops that don’t support simply scanning from my phone I usually just don’t bother with the hassle. Although I know I’m missing out on accumulating more loyalty points in the process.
Solution
This would really help thin our wallets/purses if value of the transaction, at any merchant with a Monzo integration, could be converted to loyalty points. For example, a transaction at Tesco with a Monzo card automatically updates the balance of an associated Tesco clubcard without having to use the clubcard, or even carry it at all. Kind of like using a Tesco credit card to earn points without also having to swipe/scan your clubcard.
In order to redeem the points, just select in the Monzo app “Pay With Points” and use the card as normal, which then triggers a request to the merchant to pay with X amount of loyalty points and any remaining value is deducted from the Monzo balance.
Not just supermarkets and general shops either, could do it with cinemas too.
If it were Monzo doing the work of the integration with Tesco, I’d expect Tesco to do the usual big corporate thing and insist that none of its competitors are allowed loyalty scheme integrations before permitting Monzo access to their API, if they even have one. In my opinion that’d be kind of alienating of many other users, plus also goes against the idea of breaking out of corporate lock-in. Therefore, if such a feature were to be developed, wouldn’t it be best to pioneer a scheme where merchants are encouraged to develop their integrations with Monzo? They’ll of course have access to the Monzo public API once released. They just need to be reached out to perhaps?
Tesco isn’t the big problem, as in most of their stores it’ll scan on my phone. I’ve used their official app before but it suffers from the same issues in some of their stores. Particularly ones without handheld scanners, such as my local Tesco Express.
I’m trying to get the at least all the big brands to integrate with Monzo, particularly Boots, Nectar, Odeon and Cineworld.
This so much. We have contactless EMV, we have Apple Pay, we have Android Pay, we have CDCVM for above £30 contactless payments, we have loyalty cards in Wallet/the Android Pay app, we have VAS to present loyalty cards with a payment.
The claim made here makes me kind of angry when with Apple Pay, I can do my side of the payment in less than two seconds from a screen off/locked state to handing off to the terminal. From there, most of the time spent is between the terminal and the acquirer and that’s entirely under the control of such a big merchant as Tesco.
Yup, thumb to the home button for payment which also tops up my loyalty points of whichever shop I’m in at the time and has an associated loyalty card, not just Tesco would be ideal for me
Alternatively, just double tap the side of your Watch and wave that over.
Works exactly the same with VAS as far as I’ve been told (can’t test that one because I can’t set the flag to ignore Wallet pass certificates on the Watch in the same way I can on the phone and the only VAS capable merchants I know of are in the US).
Hmm, another Curve and Plastc contender. Following your suggestion means all but abandoning Monzo and I can’t think why on anyone would ever do such a crazy thing.
They have no future without an EMV solution and deals with card issuers.
Curve get around this by being a regular EMV card and doing redirection network side. That has weird issues and potential for incompatibilities.
Plastc seem to have the hardware but no software, backend or deals with issuers to make it work. Their charger is also huge and too proprietary for what it otherwise is. The undefined $50/year subscription past 18 months also kind of kills it for me.
My only slight concern is that most supermarkets require the scan/swipe of the loyalty, or it’s associated barcode, on their terminals in order for the items to be logged into the recent history of the loyalty scheme, thereby allowing the the supermarket to offer better deals suited to the shopper.
For instance, because I buy a big bag of Tetley tea bags regularly (major Tetley addict here ), I can be offered up to £1 off with my next purchase of that item. Doesn’t sound a lot, but when all added up with offers against other things I regularly buy, it makes a difference.
How might digital loyalty cards as part of Monzo allow for this?
Don’t know why I hadn’t spotted it on the roadmap before. It seems that Monzo may be psychic or possibly this feature has been requested before and I hadn’t noticed. Although if that’s the case then I’m not sure why Discourse didn’t offer a suggestion of an already existing topic when I was creating this one. This item on the roadmap might cover my suggestion.
They had said a little while that they’ve experienced some minor setbacks, but working to get back on track (or said something to that effect - I can’t find the quote).
I’d actually prefer the launch of the current account sooner, with all the basic features one would expect of rival banks (just done better) and without building on other features in the meantime, then I’d be able to ditch First Direct. The we can get more excited about any revolutionary new features.
I’ll be happy in either case. In differing amounts, I’m excited about all upcoming features.
Other than keeping the API running, I don’t think there’s a huge amount to that Monzo would need to do to make this a reality. Perhaps a nice app-to-app OAUTH2 implementation.
Not really aiming for the big players like Tesco or Cineworld, more the awesome little independent places where the spend to reward ratio is ridiculously generous.
Interesting story from the BBC - shoppers are happy to sign up for loyalty cards & have too many. But offers aren’t personalised enough to incentivise customers to use them…could Monzo reducing the friction of using loyalty cards help solve this?
Britons belong to an average of 3.6 schemes each
Some 55% said that they shopped more at retailers with loyalty schemes
Cashback was the most popular feature of these rewards among consumers
), I can be offered up to £1 off with my next purchase of that item. Doesn’t sound a lot, but when all added up with offers against other things I regularly buy, it makes a difference.
nice