Major credit cards companies are slowly starting to adopt Apple Passbook technology, as the product becomes something that’s more like a real mobile wallet than merely a ticket holder. Following AmEx’s support for Passbook earlier in the year, Discover Card this week also added Passbook integration to its mobile app in order to connect users with their card rewards.
With AmEx, the company debuted a way to add its American Express Pass to Passbook in September, allowing cardholders to view account information on the go. This includes things like account balance, transaction notifications, spending updates, customer service information, and more, all directly viewable from within Passbook. The following month, BillGuard also began offering a utility to track all your credit cards from within Passbook.
Discover, however, is offering a slightly different take. Instead of focusing on account info and alerts, Discover’s Passbook integration, a new feature in the latest version of its iOS application, offers cardholders access to their credit card cashback rewards in the form of eCertificates.
These eCertificates are essentially a user’s Cashback bonus (plus $5 or more as an incentive) in the form of a gift card for one of Discover’s retailer partners. The gift certificate can also be sent via email or saved to your iPhone’s Camera Roll, in addition to being added to Passbook. When ready to redeem the reward at point-of-sale, you simply show a scannable QR code at checkout.
Keeping in mind that Passbook technology is only around half a year old, and is already seeing adoption from major retailers like Target and Walgreens, merchants like Starbucks, and even now the credit card companies, it’s becoming clear that Passbook is well on its way to becoming more than a mere passholder – it’s becoming a mobile wallet platform.