Apple Pay Rewards Program to Debut at WWDC

Apple-PayApple plans to introduce a new rewards program for Apple Pay at WWDC next month, reports The New York Times. In a piece covering upcoming mobile payment upgrades from Apple and Google, the site suggests that Apple will announce details about enhancements to Apple Pay at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Few details are known about the rewards program that Apple plans to implement, but it is said to offer "perks" to customers who make purchases using Apple Pay.

But analysts have noted that a missing piece from Apple Pay was a rewards program to keep users returning to participating merchants. People familiar with Apple Pay said that next month, Apple will announce such a program offering perks to consumers who make purchases with the service, though they declined to reveal details.

There have been rumors about a rewards program for Apple Pay since before Apple Pay launched in October of 2014. In September, a report suggested Apple was working on a pilot program that could see it partnering with multiple third-party retailers to form an Apple Pay loyalty program.

Further rumors suggested the system could tie into iAd, delivering targeted ads to consumers via iBeacons and Bluetooth LE with coupons for free or discounted products, but it is not clear if that's how Apple's finished rewards program will work.

Upcoming Apple Pay competitor CurrentC offers a built-in rewards program that's able to incorporate loyalty cards and discounts for individual merchants, and CurrentC executives tout this as one of the major differentiating features of its system. With its own rewards program, Apple Pay will be better situated to compete with the reward-based features of CurrentC.

It is not known if Apple has plans to introduce additional Apple Pay features at its Worldwide Developers Conference, but it's possible that it could share details on an expansion of the service to additional countries like Canada. Canada is expected to be one of the first countries beyond the United States to gain Apple Pay support.

Related Roundups: Apple Pay, WWDC 2025

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
macbook pro blue green

When Will Apple Release the M5 MacBook Pro?

Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:53 pm PDT by
Apple regularly refreshes the MacBook Pro models, and a new version that uses M5 series chips is in the works. Apple just finished refreshing most of the Mac lineup with M4 chips, and now it's time for the M5. Rumors suggest that we could see the first M5 MacBook Pro models this fall. Design There have been no rumors of a design update for the M5 MacBook Pro models that are coming this...
Apple Lumon Terminal Pro

Apple's Mac Site Features Fictional 'Lumon Terminal Pro'

Wednesday March 26, 2025 12:19 pm PDT by
Apple is going all out with promotions for the popular Severance Apple TV+ show today, and as of right now, you'll find a new "Lumon Terminal Pro" listed on Apple's Mac site. The Lumon Terminal Pro is designed to look similar to the machines that Severance employees like Mark S. and Helly R. use for macrodata refinement. The Terminal features a blue keyboard, a small display with wide...
Facebook Feature

Facebook's New iPhone App Feature Turns the Clock Back to 2007

Thursday March 27, 2025 1:59 pm PDT by
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out. That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook. Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Tuesday March 25, 2025 6:45 am PDT by
Apple is expected to release iOS 18.4 to the general public as soon as next week, following more than a month of beta testing. Apple's website says some iOS 18.4 features will be released in "early April," so the update should be out as early as Tuesday, April 1. Apple this week seeded the iOS 18.4 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, barring the discovery of any...
iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Supports 8K Video Recording, Suggests Leaker [Updated]

Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:06 am PDT by
Update 7:25 pm: Based on comments from our forums, it appears the original Weibo post may have been mistranslated and "8K" actually refers to the high price of the device rather than 8K video recording capabilities. The iPhone 16 Pro currently starts at 7,999 yuan in China. Our original article follows below. Apple's forthcoming iPhone 17 Pro models are capable of shooting 8K video, up...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature 1

'iPhone Fold' to Feature Metallic Glass Hinge That Resists Deformation

Thursday March 27, 2025 4:21 am PDT by
Last week, we covered a report claiming that Apple's book-style foldable iPhone (or "iPhone Fold," as we are provisionally calling it here) will use liquid metal hinges to improve durability and help minimize screen creasing. Today, a Chinese leaker provided more details on the properties of this hinge material that help to clarify why Apple chose it for its first foldable device. According...
iOS 18 4 Ambient Music Control Center

How to Use iOS 18.4's New Ambient Music Feature in Control Center

Thursday March 27, 2025 7:45 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 18.4 update for the iPhone adds an Ambient Music feature to Control Center. Below, we take a closer look at how it works. iOS 18.4 is currently in beta, so the Ambient Music feature is not widely available yet. The update will likely be released to the general public next week. To use the feature on iOS 18.4, open Control Center and tap on the plus sign in the top-left...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

Gurman: Jon Prosser's iOS 19 Mockups 'Aren't Representative' of Redesign

Tuesday March 25, 2025 4:47 pm PDT by
The iOS 19 mockup images that leaker Jon Prosser shared today are not representative of the actual iOS 19 design, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said on social media. According to Gurman, the images that are "floating around" are based on "very old builds" or "vague descriptions," and are lacking key features. Gurman says that we can "expect more from Apple in June." Gurman made the same comment ...

Top Rated Comments

farewelwilliams Avatar
128 months ago
1 free U2 album
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ted13 Avatar
128 months ago
CurrentC is DOA as it is.

With Target going to Apple Pay it pretty much leaves it as a Walmart only operation. Game is over
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bmunge Avatar
128 months ago
Suffice to say, Apple Pay is a bust.
I use it every day. It works on the vending machines where I work and I can use my Apple Watch with my phone charging on my desk. It's pretty awesome in my experience.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
moxxham Avatar
128 months ago
And if only it would come to Australia! Every store I have been to for the past few years all have contactless now. Would actually be a little strange if they didn't have it to be honest! The technology is there...come on Apple, we is hungry for Apple Pay
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dagamer34 Avatar
128 months ago
Whatever encourages more retailers to put in Apple Pay in their stores, fine by me.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
melgross Avatar
128 months ago
Suffice to say, Apple Pay is a bust.

(Thanks to non-compliant and greedy retailers.)

No it's not. Look, there are between 12-15 million points of sale in the USA. When the iPhone 6, and Apple Pay first came out, only 220 thousand had NFC terminals. Earlier this month, during the financial call, Cook stated that the number was up to 700 thousand. That's a pretty big jump.

By the end of the year, it's expected to be at 1.2 million, maybe more. It will take years before the transition is mostly done, and there will always be small businesses in out of the way places that won't accept it, until it's well used everywhere else.

So sure, we can call what Walmart is doing greed, if making more profit. And cutting out the middleman is considered to be greed.

But look, to be fair, a company's loyalty is to itself. It's supposed to come up with ways to maximize profits. So I have nothing against what they are doing. We can see that companies affiliated with the program are allowed to also accept other payment systems after a certain time, and that time seems to have come up for a number of Current C members.

So nothing lost.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)