SAN FRANCISCO -- The newest wrinkle in mobile wallets could condense and speed the experience for consumers and retailers.
CardFree, a mobile-wallet provider for large merchants, was awarded a patent that enables the consumer to transact with everything in his or her wallet—offers, payments and loyalty points—in a single action. This way a customer could, for example, pay for an item, use a coupon and use a separate loyalty card simultaneously.
"If you look at today's large merchants, they're still struggling with consumers having to present coupons, a loyalty card and payment type separately at the point-of-sale (POS),” said Jon Squire, founder and CEO of CardFree. “That's not only a terrible customer experience, it can also slow lines at merchants, which translates into lost revenue during peak hours. Our patent allows for one scan at the POS or one check-in in the cloud to fire off all relevant items for the consumer. This is one of the key differentiators of having an integrated platform where all services work together seamlessly.”
The patent also covers CardFree’s proprietary stored value product that enables standard and nonstandard currencies, including cryptocurrency, product SKUs and conditional values. For example, the platform could be used to create a multimerchant loyalty program where values can be exchanged and redeemed at different merchants for various monetary values, products or loyalty points. This patent adds to CardFree’s existing portfolio that includes patents linking reservations to mobile payments.
CardFree offers all of its services via a universal application programming interface that enables deployment through any channel or interface, including mobile, web, in-store (kiosk, tablet, digital menu etc.), in-car and voice assistants.
San Francisco-based CardFree offers payment solutions and mobile interfaces, including mobile gifting, messaging, offers, loyalty, payments, order ahead and social-media integration.
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